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Sermon 20 October


Saint Margaret’s

Anglican Church

Budapest, Hungary

Isaiah 53:4-12; Psalm 91:9-16;

Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

All we like sheep have gone astray.

“Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, by his bruises we are healed.”

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, from which our first Reading this morning is taken, is

surely among the longest books of the Bible, though not the longest, containing a full

sixty-six chapters in total. But this is deceptive in a sense since most biblical scholars now

also agree that this Book of the Bible is in reality two, and perhaps even three, books all

rolled up into, well, one book, or one ancient scroll, if you prefer. They deduce this based

upon a number of factors including issues such as theme, use of language, literary genre,

and style.

If they are right, and they indeed seem to be, then the first thirty-nine chapters of the

Book of Isaiah the Prophet, often called First Isaiah, were penned long before the

Babylonian Captivity, or deportation, of the sixth century BC and reflect the spirit of that

early age. Most of the rest of the Book, for our purposes chapters forty through sixty-six,

was on the other hand written by an anonymous author or authors just before the end of

that long period of Exile in the 500 BC, just before the long hoped-for return of the people

of Judah to their ancient homeland; a time for them of both despair and hope, danger and

confidence, almost all in equal measure.

The author of this so-called Book of Second Isaiah, whoever he was, looks almost longingly

upon this return from Exile as a sort of second Exodus, in this case of course not an exodus

from Egypt but from Babylon, the area we would today call Iraq. Yet despite this message

of hope and the lyricism and optimism it sometimes engenders, Second Isaiah also raises

important questions about the meaning of exile, and perhaps more importantly, about the

meaning of the immense suffering and pain which has been part of that Exile and of the

lives of these ancient Judean refugees in Babylon. Would the grief and anguish of the

people ever end…? And what to make of it in any case…? Does it have any meaning…? Is

pain in any sense redemptive, salubrious even…? Good questions…

These themes of suffering and its consequences suffuse our first Reading this morning,

taken from the last of four so-called Songs, or poems if you will, of the Suffering Servant,

Songs of the Suffering Servant, elements of which have become a hallmark of Second

Isaiah. Jewish scholars, perhaps not surprisingly, tend to see the Suffering Servant

narratives in a communal or corporate sense and the Suffering Servant himself as a sort ofJewish Everyman embodying the pains of all the people. For Christians, these stark

prophecies foretell the suffering and death of our Lord at Calvary.

In any case, quite possibly for the first time in the religious literature of any culture,

infirmity itself, the wounds, bruises, and afflictions of one individual Suffering Servant are

ascribed healing power and the capacity to bring wholeness to others. “Upon him was the

punishment that made us whole,” says Second Isaiah of the Suffering Servant, “by his

bruises we are healed.” The Suffering Servant has himself become “the lamb that is led

to slaughter,“ a sacrifice in other words of a completely new order from the animal

sacrifices of old. A truly astonishing assertion when you stop to think about it.

Yet an assertion which has become for us as followers of the Crucified One of the Gospels,

in many ways the basis of our very faith, the basis of our redemption in the Cross of Christ.

And it is to this which our Lord alludes in our account this morning from the Gospel of

Mark, as he makes his way to Jerusalem and his ultimate suffering and death as Suffering

Servant. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,” concludes our Lord, “and

to give his life a ransom for many.”

A lesson alas which the Apostles James and John have clearly not interiorized, as we

readily see. For, in their seeming ignorance of Jesus’ mission, they seek not servanthood

and suffering with their Lord but ask instead for, of all things, “glory,” arguably the most

ephemeral of human attributes or gifts. Just ask any defeated politician or faded rock-

star. The occasion becomes then an opportunity for Jesus to address the entire cohort of

Apostles, reminding them of their call to servanthood. “Whoever wishes to become great

among you,” says our Lord, “must be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among

you must be slave of all.”

It is a call to servanthood and discipleship which echoes down through the ages and is as

relevant today as it was in Jesus’ time. For us, Isaiah’s Suffering Servant is indeed the

Messiah, the Christ. And we are his disciples and servants, called to do his will; called to

servanthood and self-giving, a call still resonant of our Lord’s own servanthood, of his

suffering and death and the redemption he won for us at the Cross.

Well, the refugees and exiles of ancient Babylon are in a very real sense with us still. Be

they the victims of nearby or far-off wars seeking solace and peace among us in Central

Europe. Be they the peoples of our own lands, refugees at home, the homeless, the

oppressed, the afflicted. Or be they sometimes our very own selves, as we make our way

through our own spiritual anguish and interior exile. Yet, Christ remains forever the only

one who brings genuine peace, who only one who brings genuine comfort; Christ, the One

who has given his life that others may live.

Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Frank Hegedűs

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