Song of a Servant

(Is 42:1-8; Mtt 3:13-17) JG White ~ 10:30 am, Sun, Jan 11, 2026, FBC Amherst

The song of a servant. That’s what Sandra read a few minutes ago. 

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights… So begins this page from Isaiah in the First Testament, and we Christians immediately apply it to Jesus the Christ. For good reasons. But in those days, a few hundred years before Jesus was born, these were words of hope to those troubled people. You know who I mean. Those Hebrews who had been scattered. Yep, their nations was wrecked, and most of the leaders and working people had been hauled away to the north, to the little empire of Babylon. Those who remained in Jerusalem and the hillside towns were scraping by and coping, where all they knew had been destroyed.

But some prophet (we call Isaiah) gives this poetic message, about a great servant who will make things right, in the most gentle way. And won’t give up or get worn out. Keep on keeping on until things are right again for God’s people, maybe for all nations. 

A commentator on this Isaiah text, Professor Richard Ward, pointed out that we read this as a song. (I don’t know how Bible scholars who read the Hebrew language recognize lyrics, but they do.) Richard Ward said, 

What a curious choice the prophet makes in fashioning a word of hope! Given the severity of the situation, why not a bold announcement, uttered noisily in the streets to catch the ear of the passerby? Why does the singer appear instead of the street preacher? Why is the poet assigned to bring the message in place of the herald? Perhaps the prophet knew something about the nature of a song. (Feasting on the Word, Year A, volume 1, 2010,p. 221)

It is the nature of song that it reaches and touches. 

Our times are ‘same but different’ compared with that moment in Isaiah 42. Or Matthew 3, when a new Servant came on the scene to serve humanity, and all creation. Oh how we seem to need justice brought to the nations now, light to the nations, as Isaiah sang. 

I noticed in my sermon notes I had written down a hymn number and title to use, this Sunday. I didn’t use it. # 408, written by an Anglican, in England, back in 1861. Here it is, in our 1973 Hymnary. This song is a prayer for peace. 

1. O God of love, O King of peace,

Make wars throughout the world to cease;

Our greed and violent ways restrain.

Give peace, O God, give peace again.

Would those verses, and the other stanzas, speak for us? Speak to us, if we sang them today? Instead, we will be singing a much more recent hymn, of the Holy Spirit. She Flies On, by Canadian Anglican Bishop, Gordon Light. Once we finish with the fourth (of five) verses, we will have landed at the baptism of Jesus. This Sunday is Baptism of Jesus Sunday. 

We have not sung She Flies On since I have been here. Or while Dr. Dan was here. But you did before. I recently viewed the recording of the celebration of life of Rutharden LeBlanc, who was our organist and choir director here in the 2000s. There was a 65 voice choir right here, at the funeral in 2008, and the first hymn sung was She Flies On. 

We can see in stained glass the biblical image of God the Spirit as a little white bird. Indeed, the dove does fly on, on and on through history, through our community, through our lives and our Church. What hope we sing when we declare that the Spirit of goodness and power keep on keeping on. On a journey just begun, as the song says. God is still at work! Even when we don’t feel it, we sing it.

Songs are servants. Music soothes the savage breast, yes, but it does so much more. What a gift of communication music is. 

This is true of all sorts of music. 

So who are our contemporary prophets? The singers and songwriters of our lifetimes who are lamenting and laughing and confessing and hoping for us all? Who are our servants of song?

You might name plenty. I have been caught, in very recent months, by the music of a folk singer from Arkansas who is speaking profoundly to the troubles of the US and the whole world today. Jesse Welles brings a whole new repertoire of protest songs. Here is a bit of one, simply called Red. I do not follow politics well,  but I hear in this allusions to American leaders and other situations. In the end, I find it to be a song of uniting because of a common enemy. Maybe more than one enemy. But we will hold hands…

I got a red tie and it's ten feet long

And it matches my red hat

I got me a red bird, and a red fish

A red dog and a red cat

And I got me a red pen, and I use it

I got a big red chainsaw too

My red friend likes that white powder

It makes his arms do weird salutes

When the war gets here

We're all gonna hold hands

All the Baptists and the Catholics

All the Marxists and the Fascists

When the war gets here

We're gonna get on the level

Everyone looks a little bit nicer

When you finally meet the Devil

I had me a red talk on a red day

Looking for a "thank you" dressed in blue

If you want to win the war, my friend

You know you better wear a suit

I got me a red bulldog, technocratic

Bootstrap-tugging buddy

He wrote an elegy for a people he don't know

And it ain't funny

One day recently, I mean, in 2026, I was thinking about making a playlist of songs that haunt me. Songs - music of all kinds - that stay with me, slay me, trouble me, inspire me, confuse me, express me, speak to me, bless me. That Jesse Welles song, Red, would be on the playlist now. As well as the hymn The Summons, Glen Gould playing Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, Roberta Flack singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, and Tim Minchin’s White Wine in the Sun. 

Songs serve to speak way beyond the words (when they have words). They are great gifts from God. From the Spirit. From the Holy Singer of our songs. And songs persist. So we read again, after thousands of years, the so-called Servant Songs of Isaiah, and the dream of justice and peace for souls and for nations rises up again. The dream of our Saviour at work in the world comes to life. 

And we sing again of the Spirit of God like a dove, from the Father to Jesus, as the ministry begins that changes the world. We keep singing it. The world changing. God blessing. Miracles arising. All our hymns are songs of hope. We lift up our hearts, and our souls get aligned in a beautiful direction. We join the good. 

So there are many servant songs. Songs that serve. That serve to speak to our souls. That speak prophetically, for God, as it were. Or they speak for us, what we didn’t know was even down deep in us. And Creator hears our cry, listens to our song, takes pleasure in us. 

The voice of the LORD is powerful. 

The voice of God is full of majesty. 

The voice of Holiness sits enthroned as King forever. 

May the LORD give strength to God’s people!

May the LORD bless the people with peace!