Emperor Joseph II, who came to the throne in 1765, is regarded as one of the greatest rulers of Austria. Following the principles of the Enlightenment, he reformed the education system and sought the best scholars and scientists for the universities. He introduced a universal Code of Civil Law, abolished serfdom, and tried to alleviate rural poverty. He improved the public health service, reorganised the army, balanced the monarchy’s finances, permitted all religions to be practised freely and granted freedom to the Press. His emancipation of the Jews gave new vitality to cultural life and he transferred theatre management to the actors. Although Joseph’s foreign policy was less successful, this was very much a “golden age” for his country. Yet this is the epitaph he ordered to be placed on his grave: “Here lies a prince who, despite the best of intentions, was unable to carry out his plans”. A man who achieved so much ultimately felt that he’d been a failure.

We heard something very similar in our reading from Isaiah: “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity”. These words come from one of the four poems often called “Servant songs”, which conclude with the famous words in Isaiah 53: “He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his wounds we are healed”. There has been a lot of debate about these poems, which were probably written around 500 years before the time of Jesus. In particular, people have asked, “Just who is ‘God’s Servant’ here?” Some scholars argue that he represents the nation of Israel, others believe that he is the prophet Isaiah himself. And Christians, from the Gospel writers Matthew and John onwards, have always taken him as a prophecy of Jesus, the Messiah, and his suffering on the Cross.

So – just to refresh your minds – here we have the Servant saying, “I’ve worked so hard that I’ve exhausted myself; yet I’ve achieved nothing. I’m nothing but a failure who has wasted my time”. We can certainly imagine Isaiah and his prophet colleagues saying that, for they so often had their words thrown back in their faces and ignored; some were imprisoned or even killed. But can we imagine Jesus saying that? Might he have ever thought himself to have been a failure? “Of course not”, you’ll quickly answer – but let’s look at the evidence.

We must first ask, “Was Jesus popular during his lifetime?” And the answer is clearly “yes” as for three years Jesus was the talk of the town, attracting crowds wherever he went and struggling to find any personal and private space. The people loved him for his spectacular miracles and sought him out for healing, they lapped up his down-to-earth teaching, and were delighted by his attacks on the religious leaders’ pomposity. But we must remember that, on the day of his trial, the crowd turned against Jesus, demanding Pilate to have him crucified and to release Barabbas. When confronted with the naked force of authority, the crowds didn’t want to be associated with someone who seemed to be a loser. Thousands may have acclaimed Jesus – but only a hundred or so kept faith in him after his death.

We must also recognise that Jesus was a disappointment to many of his contemporaries – folk looking for a firebrand leader who would mount a successful rebellion against the Romans and give Palestine back to the Jewish people. But Jesus didn’t do that; quite the opposite, in fact, as he obstinately refused to organise a revolution, take up arms or get involved in local politics. Instead he entered Jerusalem in a ridiculous parody of imperial power and even told people to pay their taxes to the detested Roman occupiers!

And it wasn’t only the Hebrew nationalists who regarded Jesus as a failure: his disciples must have thought so, too. Their questions to him – even after his resurrection – reveal not only that they consistently failed to understand his mission but also that they were expecting him to give them privilege and status in the independent Israel they believed he was going to create. His failure to deliver their aspirations must have been a huge shock to them; they must have thought, “Why did we bother to follow this man? We were fools to have been taken in!”

Let’s now turn all that round and try to see things from Jesus’ point of view. How must he have felt when the crowd turned on him and replaced its shouts of praise with pleas for his death? How must he have felt when, after wearily replying to their questions yet again, his disciples still failed to grasp what he was about? How must he have felt when people he had healed didn’t even bother to come back and say “thank you”? How must he have felt when the religious leaders dismissed him for being a country lad who spoke with a funny accent and hadn’t been taught by a respected academic? How must he have felt when he saw so many needy people around him yet could do so little to help them? Even as Son of God he must have been frustrated.

And that’s even before we get to the Passion: we know that Jesus had a keen sense of his mission yet in the Garden of Gethsemane we see him having a huge ‘wobble’ as he prays: “Do I really have to go through with this? Is it worth the pain which I know I will suffer? Will my death actually achieve anything at all? Yet, Father, may your will, not mine, be done”. I think that was a moment of genuine doubt and crisis. And hours later, on the Cross, with his life-blood draining away, what does Jesus hear people saying? “Just look at him up there: he claimed to be our saviour, but he can’t even come down to save himself” He also sees his mother beneath him, wracked with grief, and can do nothing more than beg the Beloved Disciple (probably John) to look after her. What son wants to fail his widowed mother in such a tragic way?

There must be many people who, by the end of their life, feel that they have been a failure. Indeed, the disillusionment may have set in by early middle age as they recall their youthful aspirations and compare them unfavourably with their present humdrum existence. The man who saw himself as a business pioneer and Apprentice-style entrepreneur is stuck in a boring middle-management position. The politician who thought she was destined for Number Ten is merely a local Councillor whose in-tray is filled with complaints about rubbish collection and potholes. The teacher who dreamed of lifting deprived children out of ignorance so they could fly into the world is ground down by marking, discipline and the demands of the National Curriculum. The boy who, at the age of 8, was the highest goal-scorer in his school and dreamed of Premiership glory is now a plumber who turns out at weekends for a non-league club before a crowd which never exceeds 150. And so on: every one of these (and more) may well feel that they have failed.

And we who are engaged in Christian ministry may also identify with Isaiah’s servant. I’m of course aware that many other occupations are far more stressful (we only have to think of the NHS nurses working under such huge pressures), but Christian ministry has its own challenges. I’m sure we would all love to see our churches packed to the rafters with happy people every Sunday, with enquirers constantly pestering us with the question, “What must I do to become a Christian?”, and with church members falling over each other in their enthusiasm to sign up for the latest Bible study course … but the reality is often very different, at least in Britain. For we see churches emptying rather than filling, we see much-vaunted mission initiatives bearing little or no fruit, we see Christians taking sides in church politics, falling out and leaving their churches over stupidly trivial matters; then some of us (and I’m not talking about myself here) face a constant barrage of criticism because whatever we do is bound to upset someone, many of us (again not me) spend more time bogged down in ecclesiastical correspondence or in the maintenance of ancient and decrepit buildings than in doing the work to which we feel are called … It can all feel very personal.

I’m not complaining (in fact I’ve been happier here than in any church I’ve served), but we can easily look back and say, “All those sermons I’ve so carefully prepared, all those planning meetings I’ve chaired, all those community and outreach events I’ve helped organise …: What have they achieved? Have people come to faith? Has the church grown at all? Has God’s Kingdom been advanced? How people been brought into a “more abundant life”? When the answer to all those questions is, “No”, it’s not hard to see why ministers may echo Isaiah’s words.

I must now make a confession. You see, I’ve been a wee bit naughty and only quoted part of Isaiah’s verse to you. For although he begins with, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity”, he continues with, “Yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God” and goes on to say that he has been “honoured in the sight of the Lord”, that “God has become his strength” and that he will be “a light to the nations (whose) salvation will reach to the end of the earth”. These are no longer words of depression and despair but of confidence: apparent failure and rejection have been replaced by enthusiasm, success and hope; the prophet has come out of the dark land into the broad plains flooded with God’s sunshine.

We see the same progression, promise or contrast in Jesus’ own teaching. For instance he says this to Peter, who says that he has left everything to be a disciple: “I tell you that those who leave home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel, will receive much more … In the age to come they will receive eternal life”. St Paul echoes this; for instance he gives the Christians in Corinth a detailed account of everything he has suffered in his ministry, including danger, shipwreck, imprisonment, danger, criticism from within the churches and much more. In fact he lays it on pretty thickly – but concludes: “We never become discouraged. Even though our physical being is decaying, yet our spiritual being is renewed day after day. And the small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and much greater eternal glory”. James says much the same: “The person who patiently endures the trials and temptations that come to them is truly happy. For once their testing is complete they will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to all who love him”. Can you see a theme developing?

And of course we see the same theme in the life of our Lord himself. The writer to the Hebrews tells us to “keep our eyes fixed on Jesus” (the motto of my boyhood Bible class) “for he endured a cross and thought nothing of its shame because of the joy he knew would follow his suffering; and he is now seated at the right hand of God’s throne”.

When we hear that, and when we look at the Church which now spans the globe, then we realise that initial appearances were deceptive: Jesus was not a failure in any way but achieved everything he set out to do (and, we believe, still has more to do). Those who looked on at the time saw things in a different light – and totally misjudged him.

Many of us may, like the prophet Isaiah, be feeling that our lives have been pretty useless, that we haven’t left our mark on the world. But of course we don’t actually know – and may never know – the impact for good that we may have had. That’s a thought which may inspire us, even if the hope of our ultimate heavenly reward does not. So I want to finish with a story.

In one of the churches I’ve served, we felt we should organise a teens Youth Club. I’ll be honest and say that it wasn’t a good Youth Club: our facilities and equipment were poor and none of us really had the expertise for running it well.  I used to dread Youth Club evenings but we persevered for a number of years. Eventually numbers declined, discipline became a problem and we decided to give up.

But, before we closed, something happened. A lad of about 18 came to the door and asked to be let in. Our hearts froze – for this was a boy who we’d had to expel because of his persistent bad behaviour. But he said, “I’ve not come to cause trouble, I’ve got something I want to say”. The long and the short of it was that he had changed his ways, was enrolled in the youth programme of our local football team and was offering to help us. As it happened, we couldn’t take him up on his offer, but it’s what he said that has stuck in my memory: “I know I was bad and caused you a lot of trouble, and I want to say sorry. I know you chucked me out in the end – but you’d stuck with me and for that I’m grateful”. I don’t know what happened to him after that – but we felt so encouraged by his words. For we’d often felt we’d been wasting our time – but perhaps we had made a difference, after all.