Hear the Holy, be the Holy

2nd Sunday of Epiphany     January 18, 2026

The texts for this sermon are Isaiah 49:1-6a, Psalm 40:8-10, John 1:6-9

They say that sounds never die. 

Whether true or not in physics, certainly true in the Scriptures.

We hear a call issued in our Old Testament text:  A voice cries, “Listen!” These words, uttered sometime around 400 BCE, have permeated each century since.  They struck the ears of the Ancient People of  Israel. They tapped the shoulders of the Early Christians. They provoked the Reformation. They quickened the 19th Century Holiness Movement. And they should rouse all who claim Christ today.

Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention you peoples from far away! The Speaker here is unknown, our text seems purposefully ambiguous.

The speaker tells us he’s been called by God to speak on God’s behalf. He’s commissioned as God’s emissary, God calls him ‘my servant’ and this service is to be a light to the nations. This servant addresses God and says, I don’t know if I can do this. I’m exhausted and disillusioned. I see my efforts come to naught.

This lament, this response to God’s Call is so very universal. God speaks in our inner ear and prompts us with an idea of something, but it seems too big, it asks for more than we think we have. He has called upon the Peoples of the World to listen. And he is listening himself, but he too has reservations. As do we all.

What does God do? God answers this servant with this:

Is it too much that you be my servant.
Is it too much that I, the Master, take full responsibility for outcome?
Is it too much that you simply do as I ask, one step at a time?
Is it too much to ask that you leave the results to me? obey me? trust me?

Let’s consider the original context of this call. This prophet has two immediate audiences, both of whom face a crisis. The one audience is those who are living in the aftermath of a disaster, they’re in a wilderness not unlike Gaza today: charred ruins, burned fields, their homeland laid waste by the invasion of the Babylonian empire. They face ruin and a struggle just to survive.

The other members of the Servant’s audience are those who had been taken into exile and were faced with a completely different culture: a wealthy, powerful culture, a culture with many gods. They faced a different kind of survival. How much accommodation or assimilation must they render before they lose their own identity, their own values, their own faith in Yahweh?

And both audiences asked where is their God was in all of this: the God of Abraham and Moses. They’re confronted with the question of where their God stands in relation to the gods of Babylon? How is it their God, the God they believe created the heavens and the earth, has failed to protect them and their Promised Land from the gods of Babylon?

But note, this servant doesn’t just speak to those of his day and place. He demands that the people from far and wide listen as well. That’s why I say this call reverberates through time. It is a call that is not confined to either time or space. It is a call that originates from God, and it carries forward at full volume through all time and to all peoples, to all lands. Which means it is a call we are to heed as if God were speaking from that pulpit in this sanctuary.

And it is also the case that we’re like that original servant of God, that person God recruited to undertake a task. A Holy task.

So, okay, God’s Word is outside of time. God’s Word does not expire. But what are we supposed to do with this text?  What does it have to do with us?

It seems the servant has been empowered with words that are piercing and sharp, like a pointed arrow. This word, this message, is to fly through time like an arrow, so that God’s salvation will reach to the ends of the earth. (v6) 

The servant says he’s tried and exhausted. He says my strength is spent to no avail.

God responds with, in so many words, you’ve got the wrong idea. You think I’m asking you to restore Israel all by yourself. Not only are you not undertaking what I ask on your own, but it is I who will do this, and it isn’t just Israel I want restored; I want my salvation to reach to the ends of the earth. Your job is to be a light.

Let’s remember this: Israel was to be a light to the nations. Israel was to set an example of what it means to be holy—to be a people faithful and obedient to God. They were to be holy. Their obedience to God, their love for God, their holiness would be a beacon that would draw other peoples to God. But they’d failed. God is telling this servant that he’s to be like Israel. He’s to, in a sense, stand in her place and be a light, be holy as she was to be so that God’s salvation would reach to the ends of the earth.

So, my friends, when we read a text like this, when we hear God call’s Listen to me!
We can feel daunted as well; overwhelmed. We look at all the effort we’ve put into our church, in trying to be a good servant of God’s only to see so little fruit from all of our labor. We could also say “I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing.”

But we forget just what part of this falls to us and what part falls to God. Our part is to be a light. God’s part is to do the heavy lifting. And what does it mean for us to be the “light” that will shine in a context of fear and want, in a context filled with competing voices, confusion and ambiguity? A light that speaks a message that rings true, that actually comes across as a real answer to what ails us and the world.

To answer this, we must understand what kind of salvation God is undertaking through us, God’s servants. We have to look at Isaiah 42:1-4 for an answer to this: it is a salvation wherein God’s justice reigns. Commentator Richard Ward describes this salvation as “an order of compassionate justice that God has created and upon which the wholeness of the universe depends.” And it is a gift of salvation intended for all people. 

So this salvation isn’t just about being saved in a spiritual sense. It is a salvation that sets things aright. It’s a salvation that is defined by justice. So, what does it mean, then, that we’re called to be the light of this kind of salvation? I think John Wesley laid it out succinctly when he said, “Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can.”

We call to mind Martin Luther King Jr tomorrow in honor of his effort to bring the light of justice for people of color. Now we are not all called to be MLK Jrs, but we are called to serve God’s salvation. A salvation that is intimately tied to God’s justice. We do this by listening to God, by having our inner ear cocked to receive God’s word to us. We do this by doing all the good we can—and this doing good is not just about being kind and helpful and encouraging, it is also about facing down that which is not good; to call it out and declare it wrong. In other words, to do what we can to counter injustice. 

We all know there are big injustices in our society, and it’s important that if God lays on our hearts to do something on that front, we do it. But Injustice can take place in our own personal spheres as well. If someone says something that does not line up with love your neighbor as yourself, something that demeans someone else or a group of people. In those moments we are not to be unkind, but we certainly are not to be silent. Speak a word into the situation or model an act of kindness in the situation.

And friends, churches, large and small, mainline or evangelical, are called to speak into the great unabashed, wreaking-havoc injustices renting families and tearing at the fabric of our country. Heaven forbid we think we have nothing to say; that there’s nothing we can do.

May we open our ears and Listen to God because God is indeed speaking.

Linda Quanstrom, Pastor

Cornelius UMC

Cornelius OR