Have you ever been hurt by someone you love? Have you ever experienced rejection from people? Have you ever been the victim of injustice or cruelty? You are not alone, Jesus understands your hurt and your pain. The biggest difference is that he didn’t just experience it from one person, a group of people, or for just a short time. Jesus experienced it by the world and continues to experience it. This isn’t meant to minimize your pain, suffering, and anguish. Rather, it is meant to remind you as the song says, “Jesus knows all about our struggles, He will guide you till the day is done. There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus, no not one, no not one.” Isaiah 53 paints a grim picture of the Suffering Savior who would come into this world. Isaiah 53:3-4 says, “He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him; He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”
Isaiah is writing approximately 700 years before the time of Christ, yet God has revealed to him how God’s Son, the long-awaited and promised Messiah would be rejected by the world He was sent to save. One of the reasons that Israel rejected Jesus is because Jesus didn’t look like they thought a king should look. He didn’t behave the way they thought a king should behave. He didn’t talk the way they thought a king should talk. When Jesus was crucified, they actually thought He was getting what He deserved, and that God was punishing Him for all that He had done during His ministry. What they failed to see is what is written in verse 10, “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” It was the Father’s plan all along to send His Son to be the sacrificial lamb, the only one who could remove the guilt of our sin, and restore us back to a right relationship with God.
Our country is in a bad place right now. Any thought that COVID-19 could bring us back together as a country, and that we would get our priorities right as a result have been erased by what we see happening all around the nation in light of George Floyd’s murder. COVID-19 masked for a time our issue, but now the riots, political distrust, and civil unrest are unmasking the true problem of humanity. We have a depraved heart that is bent towards sin. It is seen in our pride, arrogance, racism, and even in our defiance of a simple order to wear a face mask when we are in a public building for the safety of others. We buck the mandate because “they are trying to take away our freedoms.” Yet, we should be willing to inconvenience ourselves for a time for the sake of others. That is certainly the example that Jesus gave us in His life and death. Our world needs Jesus! Church, it is our calling to take the Gospel to the world. If you need proof that sin is reigning and ruling the day, just look around; realize that God in the Gospel has given us the ability to share how He can change our world. Then, let’s repent for not taking His calling on our lives as serious as we should have, and ask for His forgiveness, but also His help to be obedient to Him from this day forward. Our world needs Jesus, what are we going to do about taking Him to them?
By His grace and for His glory,
Pastor Justin