A couple of years ago, there was a trend on social media where women were asking their male partners this question: “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?” Evidently, these women were surprised that their husbands or boyfriends were thinking about ancient Rome way more than they thought.
One day, we were at home and my wife, Jessica, turned to me and asked: “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?”
“Uh…not that often,” I said.
She paused and then asked: “Okay. How often do you think about Lord of the Rings?”
“Every. Day.” I immediately said.
It’s true. I think about Middle-earth way more than I think about the Roman Empire. I love Lord of the Rings. That’s my Roman Empire.
I know an embarrassing amount about Lord of the Rings and it has come in very handy when I need to embarrass my children.
One of my favorite scenes is when the wizard, Gandalf the Gray, stands before the fiery, demonic Balrog on the bridge of Khazad-dûm. If you’ve seen the films, you know that Gandalf blocks the bridge, turns toward the monster, and declares, "You cannot pass. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow!” Then Gandalf holds his staff high and declares, “You shall not pass!” It’s an amazing moment.
Gandalf identifies himself with confidence and clarity: I am a servant of the Secret Fire.
That line came to mind as I read Isaiah 49 this week. Because in our text, we meet a figure who stands before the forces of their world—not with a staff, not on a bridge—but with a calling. A Servant. Someone who can say, “I know whose I am. I know what fire God has placed within me.”
This Servant isn’t Isaiah. Isaiah introduces him, but this is another voice—one who has been set apart by God for a particular purpose. The Servant Songs in Isaiah give us a portrait of someone God chooses, shapes, and sends.
And we need to remember where these words first landed. Isaiah 49 speaks into the trauma of Exile—into a community that had lost almost everything that once grounded them. Their land was gone, their temple destroyed, their leaders scattered, their identity shaken to its core. People wondered if God had abandoned them or if the story was simply over. Exile is not just geography; it is a spiritual condition—a dislocation of hope. Into that space comes this Servant: a figure called, named, formed by God, speaking to a people who could barely imagine a future. The Servant’s voice rises in the ruins, saying, “God is not finished with us. The story is not over. Light can still break in.”
Is this Servant figure a royal official? A prophet? A metaphor for Israel? Or a symbolic representative of a faithful community?
Scholars don’t agree. And maybe that’s the point.
Maybe the Servant is meant to be both an individual and a community—one person and a whole people. The Church has long seen Jesus reflected in these words, and rightly so. But we can also let this text speak in Isaiah’s time and in ours, where God still calls and forms people to reflect the very heart of God.
So what does this Servant teach us? What does it mean to be a “servant of the secret fire,” so to speak—one who carries God’s light?
The Servant begins: The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. (Isaiah 49:1)
Before the Servant does anything impressive, before they speak truth to power, before they become a light to anyone—God names them.
Identity comes first.
In spiritual formation, identity always precedes activity. God calls us beloved before God calls us useful. God forms us before God sends us. But we live in a culture trained to do the opposite—we define ourselves by achievement, performance, and productivity.
This is why spiritual practices such as Sabbath-keeping and contemplative silence are so important. They aren’t ways to make God love us more. They are how we let God’s voice rise above all the other voices: the voice of shame, the voice of fear, the voice of market productivity, the voice of comparison, the voice of urgency.
Communities need this grounding too. Churches who forget their identity start to chase trends or anxiously reinvent themselves. Churches who remember their identity—beloved, called, rooted in God—can minister with freedom and calm. They don’t rush. They don’t panic. They don’t measure everything in numbers. They embody God’s love because they are secure in God’s love.
Identity first.
Then the Servant surprises us. They say:
I have labored in vain.
I have spent my strength for nothing. (Isaiah 49:4)
There’s raw honesty here. This Servant is discouraged. Tired. Burned out. They wonder whether their efforts have made any difference at all.
Maybe you’ve been there.
You work hard at your job or your ministry, you love your family, you volunteer, you pray—and still wonder, “Is any of this going anywhere?”
The Bible never pretends that God’s people are immune from exhaustion. In fact, the Bible is often more honest about fatigue than the Church is willing to be. Spiritual formation is not about becoming superhuman; it is about meeting God in our limitations.
Many congregations today feel tired—shrinking resources, aging members, cultural shifts, denominational struggles. It is tempting to believe, “Our strength has been spent for nothing.”
But the Servant’s tiredness doesn’t disqualify them. It becomes the very place where God speaks next.
God does not say, “Come back when you’re more energized.” God says, “You’re discouraged? Good. Now listen… because I have something to show you.”
Here comes the turn—one of the most beautiful lines in all of Isaiah.
God says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)
Too small a thing for your calling to be limited to Israel. Too small a thing to restore only one people. Too small a thing to think your light is for a single group, a single tribe, a single nation.
In other words:
“Your mission is bigger than you think. Your light is brighter than you know. Your calling extends farther than you have imagined.”
God expands the Servant’s imagination.
And this is why the Church reads passages like this during Epiphany—the season of light. The season when we remember that Christ’s light was never meant for one people alone but revealed “for all nations.” Epiphany pulls our gaze outward. It reminds us that the light God gives is not a private possession but a gift meant to travel, to cross borders, to illuminate places we have not yet dared to go. Epiphany is God’s gentle insistence that the world is wider than our worries, and the gospel is bigger than our boundaries.
When God forms us, God always widens us—our compassion, our welcome, our listening, our justice, our curiosity. God pushes us beyond our comfort zones and beyond the borders we prefer to draw.
For individuals, this might mean:
- welcoming the neighbor we instinctively avoid,
- listening to people whose experience challenges ours,
- practicing hospitality to the lonely,
- confronting our own prejudices,
- learning to see Christ in the faces we’ve overlooked.
For churches, this means refusing to shrink. God says, “It is too small a thing”:
- to serve only our members,
- to do ministry that protects our comfort,
- to remain silent where justice calls us to speak,
- to be a community for insiders but not outsiders,
- to ignore the needs of the poor, the lonely, the oppressed, the displaced.
God invites congregations into a spirit-expanded imagination—a community whose love points outward, whose compassion crosses boundaries, whose welcome has no walls.
Friends, Isaiah is trying to tell us:
You carry a holy fire too.
You have been called from the womb.
Named before you drew your first breath.
Shaped for a purpose that is not about you,
but always, always for the healing of the world.
It means we don’t get to say our lives are too small to matter.
We don’t get to believe the lie that we have nothing to offer.
We don’t get to let exhaustion or cynicism have the last word.
Our task is to keep the fire lit—
through prayer,
through compassion,
through acts of courage,
through showing up when showing up is hard,
through telling the truth,
through loving the neighbor we would rather not love.
We are called to the places of fracture—
to stand on the bridges,
to face down the shadows of our own day,
and to say with humility and hope:
“Darkness will not pass here.”
Because the world is aching for communities that carry light,
that carry courage,
that carry compassion,
that carry justice,
that carry joy.
Sister and brothers, you are called.
You were formed for the healing of nations.
You were born to shine.
So, may we stand where we are needed.
May we remember the fire we carry.
And may we step with courage into the calling God gave us before we were born—
a calling to be light,
a calling to be love,
a calling to be Christ’s servants in a world that still waits for redemption.
Amen.