Hope For Those in the Margins
Isaiah 51:4-6; 52:7-10
Maybe...you are one of them...one of the few...part of that rare breed
of people...
-perhaps you are one of those individuals who has always fit in...
-who has always received the right amount of positive attention...
-who has always been well-like, admired, and respected...
-who, by your very presence, commands the eyes and ears of
everyone in every room
If so—if you are one of them—this message has nothing whatsoever
to do with you
-so I give you my blessing to leave right now...
-or if you need a ride home from someone who can’t leave right
now, then you have my permission to take a nap for the next 20
minutes or so
--you can
wake up when you hear the rest of us singing Turn
Your Eyes
Upon Jesus
For the rest of us...
-those of us who know how awkward it can feel when it seems we’re
the only one who doesn’t fit in...
-who know what it’s like to be ignored, disregarded, overlooked,
discounted...
-to be relegated to subsisting in the margins...
-who feel invisible even in our own community, our own church, our
own home
-we’re not hated or persecuted...we’re just simply forgotten
--and so for us...this message reaches the heart of each of us
You see, I intended from the start for this message to be about
missions—that’s appropriate since we, as Southern Baptists, are in
the middle of our annual emphasis for international missions
-I chose a text
that was a favorite of our pastor in
Dr. David Garland...let’s read it together
Read Isaiah 51:4-6
I can still hear him proclaiming à The islands still wait!
Actually the entire phrase is à The islands will look to Me and wait in
hope for My arm.
-in Isaiah, God’s “arm” is a symbol of His justice (51:5a)
--it represents His power and sovereignty (40:10)
--it is the instrument of His salvation (50:2, 52:10, 59:16, 63:5)
-so
-what would’ve caught their attention is the reference to the islands
--they were terrified of the sea…there were no Israelites living on
the islands…so Isaiah’s referring to those who don’t know God
--to
---it would be like the Amazon jungle, the Australian outback,
or the
hope and salvation
Some must have questioned: “there are actually people out there?”
-most surely doubted: “and, seriously, God cares about them?”
--so to make sure that they weren’t confused, God inspires Isaiah to
proclaim that all the nations and all the ends of the earth will see
God’s salvation
Read Isaiah 52:7-10
Then, as now, there is hope for those on the edge of the earth…for
those we rarely even think about...for the people on the fringes
-but the more I read in Isaiah this week, the more I realized that not
only do we have a God-given responsibility to take the gospel to
the islands, but that God’s heart beats and essentially aches for
those in the margins
-all we have to do is look at the life and death of Jesus to see that
Look at the next chapter of Isaiah and the prophecy about Jesus à
Read Isaiah 53:1-9
We usually associate that text only with Christ’s passion or His
suffering on Good Friday...but that’s not entirely accurate
-a more honest, balanced approach reveals Jesus experienced life
in the margins from the moment people learned His mother,
Mary, was expecting a child
--remember, to a skeptical village, Jesus was a so-called
‘illegitimate child’...Mary was not married, and Joseph made
no claims to be Jesus’ father—the truth is, if Joseph had had
his way, Jesus would have been reared by a single mother
---despite the fact that Joseph obeyed God and did the
difficult thing of going through with his engagement and
wedding...and then treating Jesus as his own child...but
everyone in
knew the ‘truth’ (or their version of it, anyway)
----and that stigma was forever attached to this boy
Couple that with the harsh, crude reality of His birth
-sure, we glamorize the stable and the animals and the shepherds
--but there is no mother here who would chose to have her first
baby born in a barn...and we’re not talking a clean, heated, well-
lit, cement-floor, insulated Morton building
---at best this was a cold, dirty, smelly barn...at worst, and
more likely, Jesus was born in a cave...inside a mere
outcropping of rock where animals were kept for some
measure of protection from the elements
----the shepherds who left their flocks that night to find the
Baby were dumbfounded by what they saw
-----but they weren’t amazed by the angels (they
were terrified, actually)...they weren’t
impressed by how beautiful the Baby
was...they weren’t awed by the serenity that
most of our Christmas art portrays
-----they were speechless over the fact that this one
the angels claimed to be the Messiah, the
Savior, and God Himself was born in a way
and a place beneath even the poorest of poor
----Luke 2:18 à all who heard the news were astonished
... probably because the birth of the Messiah was first
announced to shepherds—outcasts who, themselves,
lived on the very margins of religion and society
From the gossip surrounding Mary’s pregnancy to the pitiful
circumstances surrounding His birth, Jesus subsisted in the margins
-He grew up in an insignificant, hick town in the hills about 15 miles
west-southwest
of the
--even His closest friends had a hard time swallowing the sheer
insignificance of His hometown
---John 1:46 à “
there?” Nathaniel asked.
On top of that, Mary and Joseph were unimpressive figures in an
overlooked town...Mary, a stay-at-home mom...Joseph, a common
laborer—true, much popular writing has idealized what a fine
craftsman Joseph must have been; but the reality is that the Bible
never mentions any such thing...and it’s more likely that Joseph
earned only enough money to eek out a day-to-day existence
-the fact Luke 2:24 records the couple could not afford to offer the
preferred sacrifice in the
Based on the fact that Joseph was likely 15 – 20 years older than
Mary and because Joseph isn’t mentioned after Jesus is twelve, it’s
probable Joseph died before Jesus’ public ministry began
-it’s possible Jesus spent some or even a great deal of His teenage
years and young adulthood without a traditional father figure
That’s all speculation, of course, because we really don’t know much
about Jesus’ adolescence and early adulthood
-we can, however, infer from Scripture that to most people Jesus of
--Read Mark 6:1-3
---they took offense at Jesus because He demonstrated an
authority and power that went well beyond His upbringing
---their reference to Him as “the carpenter” in v.3 is not a
compliment...instead it’s a rather sarcastic comment
about the rather regular person He seemed to be
----in other words, Jesus gave the impression that He
was a poor, hard-working, uneducated, far-from
special peasant—just like them
-----He was a commoner, not royalty...depending
on others’ hospitality and financial support
-----He struggled to survive like everyone who had
been assigned, as if by fate, to the margins
As an adult...as a wandering teacher...Jesus Himself said that He had
no home, no bed to call His own
-and, of course, He was misunderstood...ridiculed...rejected by the
very people He had come to help, heal, and save
His friends weren’t exactly “good” enough, either
-since Jesus lived in the margins, He hung out with those in the
margins, and He was friends with those in the margins
--it should come as no surprise, then, those who were in the
margins accepted Him...trusted Him...loved Him
-Jesus called “friends” those who had been given other labels like...
--sinner, drunk, tax-collector, woman, traitor, revolutionary,
prostitute, leper, demon-possessed, untouchable, disgusting,
loser, thief
---if the old saying is true—that we are known by the company
we keep—then Jesus was truly a man of no reputation
About 10 years ago, Rick Elias wrote/recorded a song by that name
He was a man of no reputation
And by the wise considered a fool
When He spoke about faith and forgiveness
In a time when the strongest arms ruled
But this man of no reputation
Loved the weak with relentless affection
And he loved all those poor in spirit
Just as they were
He was a man of no reputation
And Jesus spoke a message of truth and grace...a message of sin
and a call to turn away from that sin...a message of love and second
chances...a message of holiness and hope
-and so it is beyond irony or coincidence when Jesus first returned
to His hometown after beginning His public ministry He quoted
from a certain Old Testament prophet
Read Isaiah 61:1-3
Jesus reveals the focus of His ministry and exposes His heart
-the poor (to whom He preaches good news)
-the brokenhearted (whom He heals)
-the captives (to whom He proclaims freedom)
-the prisoners (who He releases from the darkness)
-the mourners (who He comforts)
-the grief-stricken (for whom He provides for their needs...giving
them a beautiful crown instead of the traditional ashes...giving
them joy instead of mourning...giving them a reason to praise
instead of overshadowing despair)
And eventually, in the end, Jesus was arrested, tried, and found guilty
-He was abandoned by His followers...beaten nearly to death, all the
while being made a spectacle at the hands of the worst of
humanity ...being pushed further and further into the margins until
...until He was finally pushed off the page entirely—erased, made
to disappear, silenced
--He was buried in a borrowed tomb—He, Himself, being too
poor to afford such a basic necessity of life and death
Seen from this angle, we gain a better perspective of the head-
shaking, life-changing truth of Philippians 2:5-8 [Read The Message]
It’s easy—I know—to consider Jesus some other-worldly God who is
so out of touch with our reality of pain, sorrow, and loneliness
-but that’s wrong...that’s simply not the Jesus of the Bible
The Jesus of the Bible doesn’t merely feel sorry for those in the
margins, the Jesus of the Bible intimately identifies with those in the
margins...because the Jesus of the Bible
-was born into a nation in political and religious crisis
-was given to a poor couple who could barely meet His needs
-was forced to flee as refugees to another country
-knew nothing but poverty His entire life
-was marginalized by His own hometown and His own family
-was regarded as a “nut case” by those in authority
-was rejected by those who needed Him most
-was surrounded by a bunch of undesirables
-knew firsthand the flaws of the so-called justice system
-was pegged a criminal even though He was the only one in the
whole bunch who was truly and completely innocent
-was killed because those in the margins—people just like you
and me—were and are the objects of His amazing love
*And as horrific as all of that is, the even greater tragedy is when
someone in the margin turns away from that kind of love