Sunday 29th March – The Servant’s Love – Pastor Adrian Kitson

Isaiah 54:9-10, palm sunday, pastor adrian kitson, The Beauty of the Cross, The Servan'ts love

⁹‘To me this is like the days of Noah,
when I swore that the waters of Noah

would never again cover the earth.
So now I have sworn not to be angry with you,
    never to rebuke you again.
¹⁰Though the mountains be shaken
    and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
    nor my covenant of peace be removed,’
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

They must have sensed something very, very good that day. Why else would you rip of your coat or climb a palm tree to get those branches for laying on the ground before Jesus and his little donkey?

They were as joyous as a couple handling their newborn, as delighted as a couple making up after a rough patch, as raucous as a town marvelling at the opening of a brand-new shopping mall, complete with neon lights.

They must have known Isaiah well. He would have been everywhere in their childhood and in their hope-filled dreams for their future.

They would have known about The Servant. They would have known his arrival would signal shining hope.

By their jackets and the branches and their song words from their song book, the Psalms, they show they know that Jesus is The Servant who brings solid hope and unbridled joy!

Isaiah reaches to delight in this hope he says will come. In chapter 54 Isaiah uses three pictures to proclaim the miracle of the Servant’s grace for us all.

A childless woman singing her joy over her growing family (54:1–3)

‘Sing, childless woman,

you who never bore a child;

burst into song, shout for joy,

² ‘Enlarge the place of your tent,

do not hold back;

³ For you will spread out to the right and to the left…

A lonely wife finally comforted by her loving husband (54:4–10)

⁵ … your Maker is your husband –

⁶ The Lord will call you back

as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit –

a wife who married young,

only to be rejected,’ says your God.

⁷‘For a brief moment I abandoned you,

but with deep compassion I will bring you back.

A broken and destitute city rebuilt and beautified with costly jewels (54:11–17)^[1]

¹¹ ‘Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted,

I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise,

your foundations with lapis lazuli.

Terror will be far removed;
it will not come near you.

^[1] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 364.

Our text is that second picture: a couple reconciling after a very rough patch.

She feels abandoned and unloved because she has been. Like God was in the days of Noah when,

Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5).

As God found a way back to hope and life with Noah, so this husband finds the way back to recognise and affirm and comfort his partner with all the compassion needed.

The jacketless palm laying city is doing the same: welcoming the Servant back. They know they need this kind of hope. They sense he has it for them. Joy rises.

But, of course, they did not seem to get HOW this new king would do his work. They seemed to miss the bit about being stricken and afflicted, unrecognisably human and an object of public scorn and shame in order for this hope to be delivered.

They did not see that they themselves would be gathered again in a week to shout, “Crucify him!”.

That is us. So fickle; and we struggle to even notice.

Makes you wonder about this ‘new thing’ happening. Will it be enough? Will it all last?

We have heard that it often didn’t. All the way through Isaiah that God’s people could never really live in peace with God for very long or very well.

From Noah to Moses, to David to Solomon and beyond, God’s people were just so fickle in their loyalties and so needy in their needs.

But will this last? Will this be enough for our fickle hearts?

Isaiah says “Yes’. What this Servant will do in the last week of his ministry with ‘sandals on the ground’ in that city will be full, complete, effective and lasting, for you.

Isaiah has often said, forget the things the Lord did in the past for a moment so you can see this new thing he is going to do in the Servant. Do that.

But now he says also go back:

⁹‘To me this is like the days of Noah,
when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth.

When the flood waters subsided and that dove did not come back to the boat God says to his remaining people and animals:

I will establish my covenant with you: never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth (Genesis 9:11).

“Never again’ are the same words Isaiah uses here.

So now I have sworn not to be angry with you,
never [again] to rebuke you again.

The Noah moment is happening again; but deeper and more permanently for people.

This time it’s not simply “never again will there be a flood”. This time it is:

‘Never again will I be angry with his people” (v9)

Just as Noah stepped out of the ark, so Jesus steps into the city out to the cross to step out of the dead tomb and God’s hoy anger is quieted.

Jesus is God’s promised permanent solution to our inability to find, know and live at peace in God.

How can this be?

Jesus made that full and lasting sin offering for the world as he said,

“It is finished: [It is complete]” (John 19:30).

God’s anger has been fully executed on his Son at that execution.

God’s anger is not a mood that will swing. It is a settled opposition to evil and violence in the world and his heart is to see justice flow on like river so that world is restored – and now it has been!

2. Every time you see that rainbow you know that God has stuck to his promise of never again flooding the whole earth (although at the moment in the north of the state and Top End it might not feel like that!), now God promises there will be a lasting relationship of peace – a new covenant of peace between he and the world founded not on our goodness but his.

Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,’

says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

3. Now we see only by faith, and we can and do get distracted. But one day we shall truly see,

‘We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).

Then, chasing any other thing or person or approval or love will be totally unappealing!

This is joy!

¹⁰Though the mountains be shaken
    and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
    nor my covenant of peace be removed,’
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Like that reconciled couple, God can see you beyond your weakness, inability, disappointments, loneliness and broken body and heart, and does.

With a compassion that wept over a dead Lazarus, he shows greater interest in your wounded heart than his offended honour.

To you who are as fickle as a slight breeze on a hot summer day, he is saying, “Yes, I was angry. And I had a right to be. But my servant has taken your guilt away. Believe me that I have cleaned your slate so entirely, you will forget all your heartache under a deluge of my felt love forever.”

One scholar on Isaiah puts our joy in Jesus this way:

“The gospel is not “He loves me, he loves me not,” depending on our own loveliness. The grace of God is a “covenant of peace” (Isaiah 54:10), a permanent arrangement bringing us a wholeness we don’t deserve. Therefore, we can enjoy God’s grace without fearing that he’ll retract it (54:4).

We didn’t cause his grace to begin with, so we can’t reverse it now. God’s anger is real, but passing. His love is also real, and lasting—forever³.

Now by faith, you pick up that dandelion and say, “He loves me: he loves me still”, always

With all your disappointments, regrets, aloneness and brokenness, enter the city this holy week. See the suffering. Pause at the bloodied man on the cross. Weep with the women, hear those shattering words of abandonment.

And then, like when a baby is born and dreams fulfilled, a partner returns in love and hope is renewed, and a city is rebuilt to live on in shining glory, go with Isaiah’s heart:

“Break forth into singing and cry aloud” (54:1).

Because this week shows you again:

His unfailing love for you will not be shaken

nor his covenant of peace be removed,’

says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Personal Reflection Bible Study

“His Unfailing Love Will Not Be Shaken”

Isaiah 54:9–10 | Palm Sunday / Holy Week

Opening Prayer

Lord God,
As we enter this holy week, quiet our distracted hearts.
Help us to see your Servant clearly,
to trust your covenant of peace deeply,
and to rest in your unfailing love fully.
Amen.

Reading the Text

Read Isaiah 54:9–10 slowly, twice if possible.

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Then read the Palm Sunday Gospel (Matthew 21:1–11 or John 12:12–19).

Sit quietly for a moment.

Entering the Scene (Imaginative Reflection)

Imagine yourself in the crowd that day.

You lay something down before Jesus — a coat, a branch, perhaps a hope.
You rejoice, but you do not yet understand the cost of his kingship.
You sense deep hope… but it’s fragile.

Reflect:

What hopes or expectations do I carry into Holy Week?
Where might my understanding of Jesus still be incomplete?

Isaiah’s Promise: “Never Again”

Isaiah reaches back to the days of Noah — a moment when God promised “never again” to destroy the earth by flood.

Now God says something even deeper:

“Never again will I be angry with you.”

Reflect:

Where do I still imagine God as holding anger over me?
What would change if I truly believed that God’s anger has been fully dealt with in Christ?

Write honestly. Don’t rush this.

The Servant’s Work (Gospel Connection)

Isaiah’s “new thing” comes through the Servant —
not by power, but by suffering.

Palm branches give way to a cross.
Shouts of praise give way to cries of rejection.

Reflect:

In what ways am I tempted to prefer a glory-without-the-cross faith?
Where do I struggle to accept that God’s deepest work is done through suffering love?

A Covenant That Cannot Be Shaken

“Though the mountains be shaken… my unfailing love will not be shaken.”

Mountains move.
Circumstances collapse.
Faith wavers.

But God says his love does not.

Reflect:

What feels most “shaken” in my life right now?
How might God be inviting me to rest, not in my stability, but in his?

From Fickleness to Faith

Your sermon names us honestly:

“That is us. So fickle.”

Yet God’s response is not withdrawal, but compassion.

Reflect:

Where do I see my own fickleness in faith, prayer, or trust?
How does this passage free me from fear that God will “give up” on me?

Standing at the Cross

Slowly read John 19:30:

“It is finished.”

This is the Servant’s final word before death —
not despair, but completion.

Reflect:

What am I still trying to finish for myself that Christ says is already complete?
Where do I need to stop proving and start trusting?

Receiving the Promise (Personal Response)

Finish this sentence aloud or in writing:

“Because of Jesus, God says to me today: ____________________.”

Then sit with this truth:

God’s compassion outweighs his offence.
His covenant of peace outweighs your failure.
His love will outlast every mountain.

Closing Prayer

Compassionate Lord,
You see us beyond our weakness and love us still.
Bring us through this holy week
from shallow joy to deep trust,
from fear to peace,
from the crowd to the cross,
and then on to resurrection hope.

Break forth our hearts into singing.
Amen.