Awakened to Serve Without Fear

Isaiah 50:4–11 & Luke 1:67–73

Before Isaiah speaks about suffering, he speaks about listening.

“Morning by morning, God awakens my ear to hear as one being taught.”

This is where faithful endurance begins—not with strength, not with resistance, not with heroics, but with a trained ear.

Before the Servant ever offers his back to those who strike him, he first offers his attention to God. Obedience grows out of listening. Courage grows out of attentiveness.

This is the first truth Isaiah gives us:

The Servant is a listener before he is a sufferer.

“I Did Not Defy” — The Opposite of Rebellion

The Servant goes on to say:

“I did not defy. I did not turn backward.”

The word here—marah—is the same word Scripture uses for Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness. It is the language of resistance to God’s way. And here, intentionally, the Servant says: I did not do that.

This matters deeply. The Servant is not simply an obedient individual. He is a representative within Israel, showing what covenant faithfulness looks like under pressure. Where rebellion once spread through fear, the Servant now stands in steadfast trust.

This is not passive obedience.It is relational loyalty.

Public Shame, Not Private Pain

The suffering described in Isaiah 50 is not accidental or hidden:

• The back struck

• The beard torn

• The face spat upon

These are public acts of humiliation—the tools of empire, the rituals of domination, the violence of shame. This is not quiet hardship; this is political, visible, degrading suffering.

And yet the Servant says:

“I did not hide my face.”

This is not weakness.

This is non-retaliatory presence.

A refusal to be shaken.

A refusal to become what wounded him.

Flint-Face Faith: Strength Borrowed, Not Manufactured

“I set my face like flint.”

This line is often misunderstood as emotional hardening. But Isaiah gives us the logic first:

“The Lord helps me—therefore I set my face like flint.”

The resolve comes after the help.The courage is borrowed, not manufactured.

The endurance is received, not forced.

This is not the grit of self-salvation.

This is the steadiness that comes from not being alone.

A Courtroom of Trust

Isaiah shifts into legal language:

“Who will contend with me?”

“Who owns my justice?”

“Who will declare me guilty?”

This is a courtroom scene. The Servant is being accused by the world, but defended by God. What’s remarkable is this: the verdict has not visibly changed yet, and still the Servant trusts.

The Servant does not wait for public vindication to live as if God is faithful.

He trusts before the outcome.

Two Fires, Two Paths

The passage closes with a sobering contrast.

Some walk in darkness with no light—and still trust God.

Others light their own fire.

This is the difference between:

• Faith in the dark

• And self-generated light

The self-made fire looks powerful for a moment. But it cannot sustain the soul. It leads, Isaiah says, to grief.

False illumination always collapses.

Zechariah’s Song: Rescued for Fearless Service

Centuries later, Zechariah sings a song that sounds like Isaiah’s Servant finally speaking from the other side of the courtroom:

“God has granted us that we—being rescued from the hands of our enemies—might serve Him without fear,in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”

Notice what rescue is for:

Not dominance.

Not revenge.

Not safety alone.

Rescue is for service without fear.

The goal is not simply survival—it is a life freed from terror so that we can belong wholly to God, live openly before God, and offer our lives without shrinking back.

This is exactly what Isaiah’s Servant models:

• Listening without fear

• Enduring without revenge

• Trusting without visible rescue

• Standing in holiness without bitterness

Zechariah sings Isaiah forward.

What This Teaches Us in Advent—and Always

This pairing of Isaiah and Zechariah teaches us something essential:

• God does not rescue us from faithfulness.

• God rescues us for faithfulness.

• Not to make us untouchable,

  but to make us free to serve without fear.

This is the shape of holy life in a broken world:

• Ears awakened daily

• Backs not turned away

• Faces not hidden

• Trust not extinguished

• Hearts no longer ruled by fear

This is not comfortable faith.

But it is liberated faith.

And it is the kind of life God still teaches us,

morning by morning.

Grace and peace,

John

a scripture rendering from SAMC

Isaiah 50:4–11

The Lord [Adonai] YHWH

has given me a tongue of the taught,

to know how to sustain the faint with a word.

Morning by morning

He awakens—

He awakens my ear

to hear as one being taught.

The Lord [Adonai] YHWH opened my ear,

and I did not Defy (marah),

I did not turn backward.

My back I gave to the smiters,

and my cheeks to those who tear out the beard.

My face I did not hide from Shame (kelimmah)

and from spitting.

But the Lord [Adonai] YHWH helps me—

therefore I was not put to Shame.

Therefore I set my face like flint,

and I knew that I would not be disgraced.

Near is the One who Aligns me.

Who will contend with me?

Let us stand together.

Who is the owner of my Justice (mishpat)?

Let him draw near to me.

Look! the Lord [Adonai] YHWH helps me.

Who is the one who will declare me guilty?

Look!

they will all wear out like a garment;

a moth will eat them.

Who among you reveres YHWH,

listens to the voice of His Servant,

who walks in darkness

and has no light—

let that one trust in the name of YHWH

and lean on his God.

Look!

all you who kindle fire,

who prepare yourselves with flames:

walk in the light of your fire,

and in the flames you have kindled.

From My hand this has come to you—

in grief you shall lie down.

Luke 1: 67-75

And YHWH-Remembers [Zechariah], his father,

was filled with the Holy Breath,

and he prophesied, saying:

“Blessed is the Lord,

the God of Wrestles-with-God [Israel],

because He has visited

and has made release for His people.

And He has raised up a horn of rescue for us

in the house of Beloved [David], His Servant—

just as He spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets from of old:

Rescue from our enemies,

and from the hand of all who hate us—

to do mercy with our ancestors

and to remember His holy covenant,

the oath that He swore

to Father-of-a-Multitude [Abraham], our father,

to give to us—

that, having been rescued from the hand of enemies,

we might serve Him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness

before Him all our days.”