About 700 years before Christs birth, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah foretold the crucifixion and sufferings of Jesus Christ. I remember, when I read it as a new believer, I was shocked by Isaiah 53s pinpoint accuracy regarding exactly how Christ would suffer and die and even be resurrected (remember, this was SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS before Christ was born), but was enlightened too about the purpose of His suffering — to save many from their sins. *pause* And this passage has never failed to make me cry every single time I read it. Isaiah 53:2b-6 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. For as I read this, I see just how intense Gods love was for us, that He would identify so completely with the lowest, the poorest, the most oppressed and the most rejected and despised of us, that He would go so far even as to become a Palestinian Jew living under the iron soles of the Roman Empire who brutalized his own people daily — born of questionable parentage (cmon, who would believe you were born of a virgin?), and endure the injustices of an illegal kangaroo trial... and die on the cross thirsty, hungry and naked. But His resurrection tells us death and injustice and sorrow will not have the last laugh. So as you read Isaiah 53, may you be touched too. For He, the Man of Sorrows and familiar with suffering, now laughs and beholds us to joy that the world can never take away, and He will wipe every tear from your eyes, if only you will let Him today.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 05:34:53 +0000
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