The Suffering Savior

Isaiah 53:3 – “He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” I guess I’ve never thought about how many descriptives are in this sentence regarding Jesus. It is packed full of images of our Lord and His time on this earth, particularly during His earthly ministry. We see two main themes from the verse:

Rejected by men. It says that He was “despised,” which literally means that He was disdained, disliked intensely, and loathed by men. It also says that He was “forsaken of men.” This means that Jesus was rejected, left destitute, and abandoned by all men. Then it states that He was so despised and rejected that He was like one whom men would “hide their face” from. Have you ever seen someone who instantly you wanted to turn your eyes away from? This is how our Lord was regarded. It also states in this verse that “we did not esteem Him.” This speaks to how we did not regard Him as worthy of our thoughts or care; we did not value Him at all. We, in our once lost state, were guilty of all these things.

Connected with pain. The verse uses two phrases to describe Jesus’ connection to pain. It labels Him as a “man of sorrows.” His ultimate death on the cross is a picture of His intense sorrow and sadness for the men that rejected Him and put Him to death. The verse also states that Jesus was “acquainted with grief.” You and I have what we call acquaintances, which means they are familiar friends in our lives. Jesus was acquainted with the familiar friend of sorrow and grief.

What can we draw from this? Jesus showed us the ultimate compassion and love. He experienced rejection, pain, loathing, suffering, being despised, men not wanting to look upon Him, and the familiar friend of grief and sorrow – all of these so that we might know Him by faith in His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. May we know that when we are facing the same thing (maybe rejection by family or friends for the Gospel, or connection to grief, pain, and despair) that Jesus has experienced them as well. Oh what a blessed Savior!