If you listen carefully, you can hear a song, a Christmas song, playing gently somewhere in the background. It is not coming from the radio, internet, or television. Oddly, enough it is emanating from your Bible. And as you inspect it more closely to discover the exact source of this Advent melody, you find it coming from the pages of Isaiah.

Sure enough, in the magnificent prophecy of Isaiah there are the songs of Christmas. Now, all of us are quite familiar with chapters 7 and 9 that tell of the birth of our Savior, the Son of God. But there are some other passages that speak of Him in different terms. These places are known as ‘The Servant Songs of Isaiah.’

These songs are discovered in four chapters in the last third of the book (a section commonly referred to as the ‘Book of Comfort’), and in them we see another name for the One who would enter the world through Mary’s womb. He is “ My Servant,” says the Lord. And each of the four songs reveals something truly wonderful about Him.

This Advent, we will be prayerfully listening to these Christmas Songs of the Servant. The first, which we will consider this coming Lord Day, is Isaiah 42:1-4.