Sermon Seeds: Stretched Them Out

Sunday, January 11, 2026
Baptism of Christ | Year A
(Liturgical Color: White)

Lectionary Citations
Isaiah 42:1-9 • Psalm 29 • Acts 10:34-43 • Matthew 3:13-17
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=e&d=13&y=17134

Focus Scripture: Isaiah 42:1-9
Focus Theme: “Stretched Them Out”
Series: May Peace Be Within You (Click here for the series overview.)

Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay

Stretching yields many benefits for the human body and mind. It enhances flexibility and decreases rigidity. Stretching muscles aids in recovery, contributes to relaxation, and facilitates rest. It enables us to function more efficiently and optimally. Lack of stretching can lead to injury and diseases. At the same time, stretching has applications beyond our inner and outer being.

We may stretch a meal by adding water or stock to make a soup or stew. The addition of pasta or rice to a more expensive protein source also serves this purpose. In baking bread, the recipe may call for us to stretch the dough, manipulating it with our hands or a device to allow the ingredients to activate and progress. Sometimes, we may be encouraged to stretch the content of a program if the keynote speaker or a special performer is delayed. Stretching takes many forms.

So what does it mean to stretch out the heavens? The first step in understanding the meaning of this phrase begins with a survey of the earthly condition of the original audience. The book of Isaiah spans multiple generations. Most significantly, the people live under vastly different circumstances. The Babylonian dominance found in the first thirty-nine chapters will give way to a new conqueror from the Persian Empire. The two regimes ruled in fundamentally different ways and that will impact those living in exile:

The time and place of Isaiah 40–55 is 539 BCE, when Babylonia succumbed to Cyrus the Great of Persia. [Deutero-Isaiah’s] message is addressed to the community of exiles living in Babylon. The chapter begins with words of comfort and reassurance and promises change for those living under Babylonian rule (40:1–2). What is known about the exiles who lived in Babylonian territory? Some scholars describe their living conditions as relatively benign. Life continued in exile with little if any disadvantage to the exiles. However, data from sociological and psychological sciences reveal a very different view of people forcibly removed from a secure existence in their homeland. Living as minorities in a foreign country offered little if any security or civil rights.
Chris A. Franke

There is nothing benign about stealing freedom, agency, and autonomy. A cage lined and littered in luxury remains a prison. Exile disconnects culture, heritage, tradition, resources and relationships. Emotional, social, financial, and mental harm deprives one of safety as assuredly as physical peril. Further, anything that restricts full and abundant life runs contrary and in opposition to the kindom of God. The Holy One reigns with justice and righteousness.

It clearly shows the Old Testament idea of justice: God is on the side of the oppressed, and justice is established by means of personal, compassionate activity on behalf of those who are weak. The servant will bring justice to those who are usually ignored and left to die, the “bruised reeds” and “dimly burning wicks” of society (v. 3). The servant’s justice will not depend upon strong-arm tactics and overwhelming force (v. 2). How the servant will bring about this justice will be made clearer in other Servant Songs, but this first song makes it clear that this justice is not limited to Israel. It is for “the nations” (vv. 1, 6) and “the earth” (v. 4) because YHWH, the God of justice, created the heavens and the earth and gave life to all people (v. 5). Indeed, “the coastlands wait” for the servant (v. 4)!
Gary W. Light

The identity of the servant referenced in Isaiah 42 (as well as the other Isaiah Servant Songs) remains unclear. Gloria L. Schaab notes that Israel considered the entirety of their communal life through the lens of their covenant with God. At the same time, she also notes that the first covenant documented in the biblical witness predates the establishment of Israel or any particular people group. The Holy One makes the first covenant through Noah, who reestablishes all of humanity as a reset of all creation. Still, the Hebrew people provide a recorded account of how a particular people group attuned to God’s covenant with humanity lived that out. In the book of Isaiah, that life is marked by occupation and destruction, exile and ruins, repentance and promise. The Suffering Servant identified in Deutero-Isaiah (chapters 39-55) is called to speak to these times with challenge and encouragement.

The First Servant Song tells of God’s call and commission of the servant. The text makes clear that the servant’s mission is to alleviate the suffering of the people by promoting justice in the nations. As a sign of God’s covenantal love for the people (v.6), the servant emerges as a compassionate presence (v.3) who liberates people from all that blinds and confines them physically and spiritually (v. 7).
Gloria L. Schaab

While some Christian interpretations point exclusively toward Jesus in examining this text, it is important to remember and honor that the text was written to a people living under tangible conditions hundreds of years prior to the birth of Christ. When we remember and honor that the One who sent the Son into the world also responded to specific human need for liberation and redemption in the past, we affirm that the Source continues to work through human beings to liberate a world that the Creator shaped to be abundant in resources, flourishing in freedom, and prosperous in community. Isaiah did not comfort his listeners with a promise of heavenly reward for earthly suffering, the prophet relayed God’s message of deliverance on earth because the reign of heaven descends to the earth.

As Gary A. Light states, “The parts of the Old Testament that were put into writing after the exile experience, however, demonstrate a remarkable capacity for giving royal attributes to humanity in general.” The New Testament continues the biblical witness of broadly ascribing the role of inheritors of the kindom to children of God. The baptism of Jesus with both Source and Spirit present and active in celebration and solidarity with the Human One further demonstrates that movement of heaven toward earth.

Jesus embodies the covenant in demonstration as well as in being. Christ assumes human limitation and yet still radiates with power given to humanity to live as reflection of the divine image, character, and nature. The same Spirit that descends at the baptism of Christ will later fall upon those gathered at Pentecost has been present with the people from Creation through Exodus and Exile and beyond all of that.

This is heaven stretched out so that the realm of God encompasses all in spirit and in truth, in justice and in righteousness, and in strength and in weakness.

The images of weakness in the reed already bent and the barely burning wick (3) represent a kingship that does not oppress but rather protects: this is the logic of justice at the end of the verse. The Servant of the LORD will be indefatigable. His calling comes from the LORD, creator and life giver, not just tribal God of Israel but God of all the earth. To the small exilic community lost in a land of many gods who might seem stronger since they gave Babylon victory, this idea is vital. Yet amid all this language of kingship, a startling expression can be seen: the servant of the LORD is somehow to be a covenant to the people. How a person could be a covenant, which is after all a mechanism of agreement, is surprising at the least. This is something new. All the language is familiar: justice, Torah, righteousness, chosen. Yet somehow the Servant of the LORD will embody a covenant that will do extraordinary things. Although the covenant remains particular to the Jewish people, it also functions as a light to other nations. Those of the LORD’S people who could not perceive will now understand and those in exile, whose experience is expressed as being in prison, will be freed. The exile is a consequence of Israel’s failure to understand, so the understanding is a necessary precondition of becoming free again. This is the purpose of the prophecy in Second Isaiah, since not until they understand will they be willing to accept, believe and act. The song ends with the LORD’S declaration of his own glory and the proof of it is to be found in the truth of his words: the past fulfilled, the future foretold. This blending of kingship language with priestly language such as covenant and Torah and prophetic language about the certainty of it happening shows the depth and complexity of the idea contained in the title ‘Servant of the LORD’.
Jenni Williams

The declarations of promise in the Servant Song rest upon the trustworthiness of the God who created heaven and earth and stretched them out. The kindom is a wide space with room for the fullness of God’s creation. The realization of the kindom on earth depends upon the covenantal and participatory commitment of the peoples that God has endowed with liberating hope, justice-seeking compassion, and transcendent joy. The vision of beloved community that is redeemed and restored is worth the sacrificial love asked of suffering servants of the Holy One…then and now.

Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.
Appalachian Elegy (Section 1)
By bell hooks
hear them cry
the long dead
the long gone
speak to us
from beyond the grave
guide us
that we may learn
all the ways
to hold tender this land
hard clay direct
rock upon rock
charred earth
in time
strong green growth
will rise here
trees back to life
native flowers
pushing the fragrance of hope
the promise of resurrection
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148751/appalachian-elegy-1-6

For Further Reflection
“She stretched her hands towards the sky. To grab all the stars, to hold the moon, to take away everything that the sky had. So that the sky could finally understand, how it feels to lose everything that makes it beautiful.” ― Akshay Vasu
“Stretching your body and mind is essential to avoid rigidity.” ― Haresh Sippy
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” ― Pablo Picasso

Works Cited
Light, Gary W. Isaiah. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.
Franke, Chris A. “Isaiah 40-66” Gale A. Yee, Ed. Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.
Schaab, Gloria L. “God and Suffering in the Hebrew Scriptures.” Journal of Biblical Theology 8, no. 1 (2025): 156–82.
Williams, Jenni. The Kingdom of our God: A Theological Commentary on Isaiah. London: SCM Press, 2019.

Suggested Congregational Response to the Reflection
During the Season After Epiphany, highlight and give thanks for the glimmers of joy and hope in your community.

Worship Ways Liturgical Resources
https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/baptism-of-christ-a-january-11/

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

A Bible study version of this reflection is at Weekly Seeds.