No Small, Ordinary Thing

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, January 15th, 2023:
​The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Isaiah
49: 3, 5-6​

​The Lord said to me,
“You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
And now the Lord says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength.
He says,
“It is too small a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

“It is too small a thing…”

Welcome back to Ordinary Time! We now resume our regular programming.

It isn’t surprising that most of the scripture for the first readings during Advent and Christmas came from Isaiah, that hopeful book predicting the coming of Christ to save us. It is interesting, however, now that the dust has settled from Advent and Christmas, that the first two weeks of Ordinary Time stay in Isaiah. Somewhere, someone felt it wise to linger in the prophecy a little longer. 

We might be ready to get on with things as usual, but Isaiah 49 invites us to pause before we slide back into the ordinary, per se. While earlier chapters of Isaiah are thought to be prophecy through Isaiah’s words, Chapter 49 is thought to be God’s specific response to a still rebellious Israel. I read this scripture in two ways. First, as an intimate conversation between the Father and the Son, Jesus, and second, as an invitation from God to allow Christ’s birth to shape our future into one of expectant discipleship. 

It’s almost as if we are privy to this dialogue between the Father and the Son to be encouraged by the prophecy and to participate in it. Inasmuch as Jesus heard God declare Him “a light to the nations,” that His salvation “might reach to the end of the earth,” so He says similarly to us. 

It is no small thing that God incarnated Himself as one of us. In the same way, God also asks us not to limit ourselves with small expectations of what can be done when He is born into our hearts. God’s will and purpose for Jesus (in this case, Israel, the servant) was single-minded, but His vision for what was possible through His death and resurrection remains unlimited. Through Him, all things are possible.

It is too small a thing, however, to not allow His incarnation to do whatever He wills it to do in my life, at this very moment in time. He descended for this very purpose. To deny Him, and ourselves, this opportunity, is somehow to deny our identity. We must become what we are, and for what we are intended.

How has His birth touched me this year? How might that affect my way forward? Has familiarity, predictability, or a feeling of “ordinary-ness” caused me to limit my belief in what God is capable of, in my life, and through me? 

Jesus, before I settle back into what is familiar and comfortable, help me to be changed by Your birth into my world. Stay with me as I ponder Your heart for us. Teach me to be an expectant disciple. There are no limits to what You can do.




Michelynne Gomez
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