The Way of the Cross (32)

As we continue to ponder the Servant of the LORD, we find more astonishing and amazing descriptions of his person and work in Isaiah 53. Given who this is, it's remarkable how 'ordinary' and unremarkable his life was:

For he grew up before him life a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)

In contrast with the great and the good, the beautiful people we see all the time in marketing and advertising, the Lord Jesus was plain, nothing special to look at. But as if that were not enough:

He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3)

We often fear rejection, and so try to please people, to be liked and accepted by them. How lonely the mission of the Son of God, who knew what it is to be rejected and despised. How amazing, that the very God who created the world, when he came to the world, was rejected by the world.

We turned our back on him, refused to listen, and thought he had something wrong with him? The man of sorrows identifies with our sorrows, because he has known them, and bore them. That agony of the cross was the ultimate sorrow, yet he did not turn away; he endured the cross for the joy that was set before him.

Hallelujah! What a Saviour.