“The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him— our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.”
Isaiah 53:5 MSG – A verse of the day from the Bible presented in Eugene Peterson’s contemporary version called The Message. Accompanied by a personal reflection below.
Here it is again: the idea that things are not always what they seem, and that the best and the brightest isn’t always the chosen one, the favored one, the one who has it all. Nay, it is the scrawny seedling, the unattractive one who is passed over, the one who causes us to turn our gaze away, the one who looks like scum — lo and behold, this despised one here is indeed the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God, the one who bore my sin and paid a blood-price so that I might be freed from eternal damnation. Do you see him? He has done the same for you as well. Will you accept him today?
Like this:
Like Loading...
