A Frustrated Jesus

Today’s chapter presents Jesus to us in a way that will be quite obvious. It begins with His incarnation in Mary’s womb, describes Him as God’s weapon and then goes on to explain the mission that God has given to Him. That mission begins as the gathering of scattered Israel. Remember Isaiah has been talking about the exiles in Babylon. But as the chapter goes on to explain, the gathering of Israel is not a significant enough work for Jesus. So, He is to gather the nations, the Gentiles, along with the exiles of Israel. As I read through the chapter you will also see that Jesus is successful in this mission. Zion is pictured as an amazed mother who is receiving back not only her once-lost children, the exiles of Israel, but also the many Gentiles who, by the way, would include you.

Listen as I read Isaiah 49.

The Jesus’ mission to gather the Jewish exiles and more is a great success. He has established a solid foundation that provides for that gathering to continue even into our day. So, we find Paul writing about how the Gospel is to the Jew first but also then to the Gentile. And this gathering by the preaching of the Gospel will continue, according to our text, until this salvation reaches to the end of the earth. And so, there is cause for great optimism.

However, there is a troubling sentence that doesn’t seem to fit. In our text we find Jesus saying, ‘I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…’ What is this? It sounds as if Jesus is discouraged. You might push it a little and say that it sounds as if Jesus is feeling a little hopeless or maybe even despairing. ‘I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…’ I’m sure that your first reaction is that this can’t be. And I understand that. A frustrated Jesus doesn’t feel at all right. But here it is. It’s part of Isaiah’s prophetic picture of Jesus. And it is a good thing that it is. It tells us that we’ve missed something. Our emotional reaction to the thought of a frustrated Jesus is off somehow. Our text provides for us a clearer picture of Jesus pursuing His mission during His days on this earth.

I think that I can say that a popular impression of Jesus’ ministry is that He went to some town or village, ministered among the people of that place and then went on to the next village and ministered among the people of that place and then the next place and so on. It all went relatively smoothly, that is, until the last week or so. If you want to push it some, it feels as if Jesus wrote out His to-do list each day and pretty much completed it in time for dinner. That might be overstating the popular sense of His life but not by too much. Who would have imagined Jesus saying, ‘I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…’? Who would have imagined a frustrated Jesus? But when He came and lived here, He did that as one of us. The incarnation was a real incarnation. Jesus experienced it all, including frustration.

My favorite example of this is in Mark 9. When Jesus came down from the mount of transfiguration, what does He find? There is a distressed father whose son is afflicted by a demon, and the disciples cannot cast it out. And what does Jesus say in response to this? ‘O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?’ What’s that? It sounds like frustration to me. Jesus is frustrated, and He’s frustrated with people, and especially the Twelve.

There is a reason for this frustration. It’s tied to Jesus’ method for achieving His goals. He adopts the method of weakness and not power. Consider the temptations at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Satan tempted Jesus to jump from the rooftop of the temple. Why? If He did, the angels would catch Him. Satan even quoted Scripture to prove that. But Jesus – and the angels – would do this while everyone watched. And who wouldn’t believe then? Angels catching Jesus. That would have been impressive. And He could have justified this by telling Himself that it was a way to achieve the mission God had given to Him, gathering a people who believed in Him. But Jesus didn’t fall for it. Instead, He chose the route of weakness. So, for one example, He chose to entrust the continuation of the mission to those twelve, sinful men: men He had to train, men who weren’t getting it. That’s what was happening in Mark 9. And it was frustrating. This choice of weakness shows itself so clearly at the Cross. Here is Jesus: mocked, tortured, stripped naked to be shamed, deserted by His friends, nailed to a Cross. And we hear Him say, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ He is even abandoned by His God. All of this is the fruit of pursuing a life of weakness instead of power and control. And so, there were those times when Jesus had that sense of futility. ‘I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…’ Jesus experienced frustration.

And yet, Jesus did accomplish His mission. After all, He was able to tell the Father, ‘I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave me to do.’ And the reason that He could continue toward His goal and achieve it, frustrations notwithstanding, is because of what the rest of that sentence in our text says. After declaring His frustration Jesus says this: ‘Yet surely the justice due to Me is with the LORD, And My reward with My God.’ [NASB] Jesus experienced the sense of futility that Isaiah has written about. We cannot just ignore that, and we shouldn’t. It’s part of what it meant for Him to be a man, to live on this earth with us. But we cannot stop there either. We need to see how He responded to that frustration. And the rest of the sentence shows us how He did that. In effect, He responded by saying, ‘Father, I trust You.’ Jesus dealt with the frustration of being here by His faith in His God. And that shows in two ways. First, there’s His comment about justice. Jesus made decisions that seem to be so wrong. That seems especially the case when we think about the Cross. To all appearances, Jesus lost. He made some bad choices, and, as a result, He failed. And as His enemies went home thinking, ‘Well, so much for that upstart. He didn’t know who He was dealing with.’ But Jesus knew that there would be justice. He would be vindicated. The day would come when the Father made sure that everyone knew that He was simply being obedient. And His apparently bad decisions, like the choice of weakness, were the right decisions. So, Jesus told Himself, ‘There will be justice. I will be vindicated’ and continued toward the goal. The other comment is about reward. ‘My reward [is] with My God.’ Jesus knew that He would be given a reward for pursuing the mission given to Him. And that translates into Jesus telling Himself, ‘Doing this is worth it. It’s really hard, but it’s worth it.’ Both of these aspects show up in Paul’s commentary on Jesus’ life. ‘Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ Vindication and reward.

I’ve dealt with the question, ‘What does the text mean?’ Now it’s time to answer a different question. ‘Why is this important?’ There are several answers for this. For one thing, we all need an accurate picture of Jesus. A distortion of who He really is will lead to problems. So, if you think of Him as somehow not really one of us, as someone who didn’t have to deal with the kind of life that we have to deal with, there will be an emotional distance between you and Him. Presenting Him as someone who experienced frustration is one way that the Scriptures show the real Jesus and how He is a real man who lives a real life. You need to see that so that He can become for you a real Savior.

Here’s another reason why this is important. Following Jesus is costly. One way this will show is by the frustration you experience as you work on that. Everyone in this room has experienced frustration. But if you’re going to understand what’s going on here you will need to ask yourself a question. You’re going to have to ask why you experience frustration. Pick some incident. Why were your frustrated then? Was it because, like Jesus, you were pursuing God’s calling on your life, and there were some obstacles? Or was it because life wasn’t working out as you were pursuing your own goals? When I first started as pastor I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Really. But in time I developed some ideas. I have put a label on that phase of my ministry. I call it, ‘Wanting to Become Famous’. I was not satisfied being the pastor of only 5o or so people. So, I had to do something that would change that. I wanted to be known, significant. I wanted to be a ‘somebody’. So, I tried some things to achieve that goal. But, as I found, there was frustration tied to that. After all, I didn’t become a ‘somebody’. But my frustrations were not about following Jesus. It was about pursuing my goal of becoming a ‘somebody’. Jesus has been kind to me, bringing me to repentance and leading me out of that attitude of pride. I still experience frustration, but it’s not so much about not achieving my goals. Now, it’s more about trying to achieve His goals for my life. It’s more about trying to fulfill what He has called me to be and to do. And, quite frankly, working on this sermon has been helpful in my making some more progress in this. Remember, I hear the sermon first.

Now, I went through all of that because there are times when you experience frustration – but for the wrong reason. You find yourself frustrated, at times, not because you are unable to fulfill something that Jesus called you to, but rather because you aren’t achieving some goal that you have set for yourself. That might be on the level of working through your daily to do list, or it might be on the level of pursuing career development. So, there’s something that I’d like you all to do. The next time you experience frustration, ask yourself this question. ‘Why am I frustrated? Is it because I am trying to get to a goal that Jesus has set for me, and I’m being thwarted? Or is it because there is some personal goal that I have set for myself that seems out of reach?’ So, why do you get frustrated?

There have been and will be those times when you are frustrated exactly because you are trying to reach that goal from Jesus. This is frustration for the right reason. So, a couple of thoughts about that. First, expect it. Expect frustration. Jesus experienced frustration, and so will you. And understanding that can be so freeing. The sense of futility that you sometimes feel doesn’t have to mean that you’ve done something wrong. Following Jesus in a fallen world is filled with difficulties. And someone blocking your way as you strive toward some goal that Jesus has for you will result in your being and feeling frustrated. But you haven’t done anything wrong. But that leads to the second thought. This is about how you respond to that frustration. And that all boils down to the same thing Jesus said, ‘Father, I trust You.’ You need to talk to yourself. Remind yourself that there will be justice. You will be vindicated. On the last day, the Father will say to you, in the presence of all, ‘You did well.’ And at that moment, everyone – including those who thought you were a loser – will know the truth. ‘You did well.’ There will be vindication. Trust the Father. There will also be a reward. I have lots of questions about what the Bible has to say about rewards, but it seems pretty clear that they will be passed out. So, what that boils down to is this: Doing this is worth it. It’s hard and it really hurts, but it’s worth it. Vindication and reward.

So, here’s some homework. When you get home, look up 1 Corinthians 15.58. ‘Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.’ Take a little time to meditate on that. Consider the larger context, the boundaries of the text. Ask yourself what Paul might be responding to with these words. Bear in mind that ‘work in the Lord’ doesn’t mean religious activities. It includes things like getting up and going to work, disciplining that child – again, studying hard, and whatever Jesus has called you to be and to do. Then connect all of that to what you’ve heard from our text this morning about being frustrated and how to deal with it. I think that you will find it helpful.