Sermon from 1.18.26: What Has Been Hidden Will Come to Light, Isaiah 49:1-7

1/20/2026

Isaiah 49:1-7
Listen to me, O coastlands;
    pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born;
    while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
    in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
    in his quiver he hid me away.
3 And he said to me, “You are my servant,
    Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
    I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord
    and my reward with my God.”
5 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 honored in the sight of the Lord,
    and my God has become my strength--
6 he says,
“It is too light 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.”
7 Thus says the Lord,
    the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
    the slave of rulers,
“Kings shall see and stand up;
    princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
    the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

What Has Been Hidden Will Come to Light: Isaiah 49:1-7

“Whenever people ask me ‘Why didn’t you get up when the bus driver asked you?’ I say it felt as though Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on the other shoulder.” Shared in 2018, these are the words of Claudette Colvin, who died this week at age 86. Ms. Colvin was 15 years old when she chose to do an act of civil disobedience that, while putting her at the risk of violence, would also be a catalyst for the civil rights movement in the United States.

On March 2nd of 1955, Colvin was one of several Black people riding in the back of a Montgomery city bus. By law, Black people had to sit in the back and had to get up and give their seats up to white people if white people got on after them and didn’t have a seat. This was a law that was intended to be humiliating and intended to remind Black people that they were inferior, even in quiet moments commuting to work or going to buy groceries. And, those laws were on the books in this country during the lifetimes of many of the people in this room.

Showing the power of a well-rounded education, Colvin had learned of heroes that looked like her: Harriet Tubman, abolitionist, suffragist, and spy, and Sojourner Truth, abolitionist and civil rights activist. Knowing what they had done for freedom and justice made her feel like she could do something powerful, too. When a bus driver attempted to enforce the immoral laws and give her seat to a white person, she opted not to get up. The driver called the police who arrested her. They charged her with, and she was convicted of, breaking segregation laws, disturbing the peace, and assaulting a police office, though her defense attorney would end up getting the first two charges dropped.

Ms. Colvin was the first person arrested for defying the segregated busing laws. Three other women, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith, would be arrested for challenging these same laws through the spring of that year. The Women’s Political Council of Montgomery, Alabama had already begun discussing the possiblity a boycott when Colvin chose to push back on the immoral busing laws. They were looking for someone to be the face of the boycott.

Boycotts are political tactics, and organizers usually make choices about who will be the visual embodiment of a movement very carefully. Colvin, for all of her bravery, was considered too young and too passionate to effectively rally adults. She would also find out that she was pregnant shortly after being arrested. Many would be scandalized enough by an unwed, pregnant teenager that they would not have been able to truly consider the merits of the boycott were she associated with it. Unfortunately, the public often demands perfect victims in order to deliver justice.

Nine months after Colvin was arrested, the secretary of the local chapter of the NAACP, Rosa Parks, an experience organizer in her own right, also chose civil disobedience and was arrested for not giving up her seat. One article I read called Parks “unflappable.” That groundedness, along with her respectability within the broader community, made the boycott organizers feel like they had found someone who could be the face of the boycott. Rallying around Parks, organizers began what would become the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr., who was a part of the Montgomery Improvement Association, would come to prominence working with the Women’s Political Council to lead the boycott.

Fights for justice rarely rely on one single action. While the public was watching and participating in the boycott, a lawyer named Fred Gray opted to pursue two legal challenges: one, an appeal for Rosa Parks on her arrest and two, a lawsuit on behalf of the four women arrested before Parks, Browder, McDonald, Smith, and Claudette Colvin. Browder would be the lead plaintiff. Colvin would finally have the chance to make a bigger impact by being a part of this lawsuit. One article I read referred to her as a “star witness” in the case.

Over the year that the boycott was going on, Browder v. Gayle would make it through the Alabama legal system all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1956, the Supreme Court would rule that bus segregation statues violated the 14th Amendment and were therefore unconstitutional. On June 19th, 1956, The Supreme Court would go on the order Alabama to stop enforcing all Jim Crow laws. After exhausting all appeals, on December 20th, 1956, the city of Montgomery finally complied with the from the highest court in the land. Only then did the boycott organizers officially stop the boycott. It went on for 381 days.

According to an article I read about Browder v. Gayle, this case and boycott marked a turning point in the civil rights movement. Civil rights leaders shifted from relying mostly on litigation to push for change to combining litigation with direct action. And, in place where litigation was challenging to even consider given racist systems in place, direct action became a primary method of social change. As the article says, “anyone could participate in a boycott, a march, or a sit-in.” I’d argue that anyone of good conscious can opt not to follow immoral laws. It is perhaps most effective when those doing direct action are doing so with some training and networking undergirding their action. But, sometimes, all it takes is a person’s bravery in a challenging moment to show other people that change is possible. Thank God for Claudette Colvin and her bravery. The nation was better for it.

Often, when we hear the phrase, “what has been hidden will come to light,” there is an underlying assumption that if something has been hidden away, it is because it is bad. And, bad things can’t help but be revealed. The phrase is actually a quote with variations in both the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke (Mark 4.22 and Luke 8:17). In both cases, the meaning of the line in the context of the Gospel is a little different than at least how I’ve heard it used colloquially. In the Gospel, it has more to do with the power of Christ’s teachings to be clear to those who really listen to them. It is more about the inevitability of the Gospel Truth to come to light, so to speak.

When I read today’s scripture from Isaiah and remembered this line from the Gospels, but thought about it in a different way. You may have noticed that our reading come from the point of view of one who understands themself to be a servant of God with a special mission. “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb God named me.” The servant goes on to describe themself as a sharp sword hidden in the shadow of a hand and as an arrow stored in the darkness of a quiver. The womb, the shadow, and the quiver are all dark places. But, in this reading, they are also places of growth, protection, and preparation. I am grateful for the work of Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney who reminds us in a sermon I’ll share in my notes on this one, that in scripture, life is born from holy, creative, generative darkness.

The tools of God are tucked away for safe keeping, for further honing, until the time is right for them to be used. In this case, the servant, who Christians have understood to be Jesus, but whom the oldest hearers of Isaiah might have interpreted to be a servant nation or a specific servant figure, is the one that must be prepared. Initially, the servant feels like they have been working so hard, but has nothing to show for it. I imagine Ms. Colvin might have felt a bit like that as people argued over whether or not she was the one to represent the movement she’d risked her safety for. In the end though, the servant expresses that they know God has something greater in mind for them.

And, God absolutely does. “It is too light 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.” God will choose this one to do great things. The time in the struggle was preparation for a bigger mission than they could have first imagined. The one that has been in the dark, learning, growing, training, taking risks, can become the light.

In this moment of struggle, I pray for places of protection, growth, and preparation. I pray for what Dr. Gafney refers to as the “swaddling blanket of creation” to envelop us, fortifying us for the work ahead. And, when we feel as though we are failing, may we remember than God resides with God’s servant, in the darkness and the light. May Christ’s light shine through us, through the darkness, into all the ends of the earth.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Some articles about Claudette Colvin: