“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 ESV
Reflection: why was, and still is, Jesus Christ despised and rejected by men?
We try to make sense of things in life. But sometimes we come across a situation, something that we just cannot reconcile. That just doesn’t make any logical or common sense. Perhaps the most difficult to understand, at least for me, is why some people just hate God. And, even more specifically, how anyone can hate Jesus Christ. You can of course reject God, reject Jesus Christ. But, despise and hate doesn’t make any sense. What is it about Jesus, even just mentioning His name, that cause such hate to flare up? If we try, even just for a moment, to think a bit objectively, looking at His life from what we know about Him, can you think of anything that He did, or said, is there anything that we can see, objectively, that would be such a cause for hate? Even hundreds of years before He was even born, the prophet Isaiah saw that this servant of the Lord would be despised and rejected by men, that He would be a suffering servant. But again,
why?
The world is talking a lot about hate these days. One group up against another., whether it is genders, political parties, ethnic groups, religious beliefs, and even nations as we witness wars and rumors of wars. But, what did Jesus do that was, and still is, such a cause of hate? Let’s look a bit more at what Isaiah saw in His vision, the characteristics of the coming servant of the Lord. “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like 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. 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. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”Isaiah 53:1-4 ESV. He was basically a “nobody”, in the eyes of the world, born into poverty, a lowly situation by all worldly accounts. We would have probably considered Him “underprivileged” today, not someone anyone would hate but more take pity on. So far so good. Let’s read on.
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5 ESV. Now this we need to consider. Is the hate for Jesus centered in that He took the punishment for our transgressions, our iniquities, our sin and shame? That it was all put on Him? Or is it the fact that, by doing so, He brought us peace with God? Or perhaps that He heals our wounds? Probably none of these things would cause anyone’s hate, right? So far, there is no obvious reason why anyone could hate Him. But Isaiah saw more about this suffering servant of the Lord, so let’s keep reading.
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.” Isaiah 53:7-9 ESV. He was innocent of any wrongdoing Himself, pure and with no falsehood or deceit. Yet He was put to death without opening His mouth, like a lamb; really like a sacrificial lamb. But still, how can that be grounds for hate? Let’s look at the last remaining words from Isaiah’s description.
“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:10-12 ESV. We see here that because of Jesus’ sacrifice,, many will be accounted righteous. Those who accept His sacrifice. Hardly a reason to hate Him for, right?
As Jesus came into this world, we read how He was received, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”John 1:9-13 ESV. We see here the deeper issue of rejecting or receiving Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The servant of the Lord.
Objectively, Jesus didn’t do or say anything that should cause anyone to hate Him, by any moral or ethical standard then or now. And yet the world hated Him then, and hates Him now. So clearly, this hate doesn’t come from some terrible thing that He did. In fact, He only did good to those He met, and in the end, laid down His own life because of His love, for all of mankind. So we are left with perhaps the most obvious proof that hate is pure evil, as we see how Jesus was and is despised and hated for no reason other than being good. We are looking at the fundamental battle between good and evil. So as we try to walk in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, and we end up being hated for no reason, even persecuted, Jesus reminds us that ““If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” John 15:18 ESV
