NOTES for Isa 42:5-16
Today, when the prophecy about the Servant of the Lord has long since been fulfilled, it is worth entering into what exactly God was revealing to His people as the essential aspects of salvation in Christ. "My Servant, whom I hold by the hand," says the Lord, will be meek and humble: "He will not break a bruised reed"... Christians, at least in theory, should know this prophecy by heart. In verses 1-4 of chapter 42, the prophet almost sees the face of Christ. And then God says: "I have given You as a covenant for the people, as a light for the nations." When the prophet wrote these words, Israel's relations with the nations, especially the Palestinian nations, were very difficult. This proclamation of Christian universalism, so far exceeding its historical context, sounds all the more magnificent.
And then the Lord, through the mouth of the prophet, calls us to sing Him a new song. Let the wilderness and the cities, the sea and the mountain peaks "give glory to the Lord and declare His praise," for the Lord has revealed His power. The covenant that Christ made with us involves not only faith that He has accomplished our salvation, but precisely universal praise, gratitude to God for it. This is exactly how the early Fathers of the Church understood the Eucharist. They called it "firstfruits," the firstfruits of the praise and thanksgiving of all creation.
And the Lord says: "I will lead the blind by a road they do not know." Of course, first of all this applies to the Jews, to whom the light of Christ seemed so unacceptably new. But that belongs to the past, and we are not Jews. What matters for us is that this prophecy also applies to us. The Lord says that He will lead all of us by new paths, will turn darkness into light, and crooked ways into straight ones. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" - for us, that is what these words correspond to.