Jesus was a human. Like all of us he experienced deep emotions and incessant stress. But unlike us he was able to to navigate this life while avoiding a sense of overwhelming fatigue and futility. How does Jesus absorb and amend this very ordinary part of life?
Isaiah 49:1-7
John 1:29-42
What does burn out mean? It’s more than fatigue, it’s the feeling of being powerless; like a battery without charge.
In Isaiah 49, Isaiah is speaking to a people who have been taken into slavery. He sings a song of hope over the captive people of Israel. A song about a servant who is called by God to save Israel.
Who is this servant? His mission is to be the voice of God, reconciling God’s people to God.
The servant will not be well-liked. He will be abhorred by the Kings and Princes of this world; but one day be vindicated by God.
The servant is Israel in the Hebrew Bible. The first Christians took this image and rightly applied it to the life of Jesus. He is the embodiment of all the things that are noble, good and true about Israel.
What we read in Isaiah 49 is a window into the inner life of Jesus. Through this window we see Jesus Christ as a man who was not immune to the hostility and futility he encountered in his life.
Could this be why Jesus continually withdrew from people and sought the God in solitude?
In Jesus we see a model of the practices needed to avoid this sense of burnout.
To escape burnout we need burned out place. For fire does not burn where it has burned before.
Jesus puts himself in our place and is able to sing hope over us.