Simply Christian

Meditations from Isaiah 53 and Colossians 2

During worship last Sunday morning, one of the lines of a song we were singing struck me. It said, “can there by anyone like You?” We sing lines like that oftentimes without taking thought to what it is that we're actually saying. Is there anyone like Jesus? Is there any Savior like Him? Not by a long shot.
Jesus in His great mercy and compassion faced and conquered the three greatest fears of all mankind. Jesus willingly endured:

1.Rejection
2.Physical Pain
3.Death on the Cross in our place

Every person deep down fears being rejected. It's a natural human desire to want to be accepted by our peers and loved ones. From the time we are young, we fear the thought of being rejected by our chosen peer group. The Bible tells us that Jesus “came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11 ESV). Jesus came to His own people Israel, Israel whom He himself had hand picked to be His own special people from out of all the people on the face of planet earth. The people whom He had rescued out of Egypt with many mighty miracles and wonders. The people He had fed and brought into the promised land giving them a homeland and a kingdom and an identity. He came to them humbly, born of a virgin to humble parents in a tiny rural town, healing their sick and opening their blind eyes...and He was rejected. In a moment many of us overlook, this same Jesus who is God and had been in fellowship with the Father and Spirit since eternity past faced the rejection of His Father as He made atonement for us on the cross. He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Jesus faced rejection from His own people and from the presence of His Father, for us. The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 53 that, “He was despised and rejected by men.” He willingly came to this earth for His chosen people knowing that He would face one of man's greatest fears to the fullest extent, rejection.
All of us fear physical pain. No one likes to experience even the slightest physical discomfort. Many of us in America spend thousands of dollars on our comfort whether it be the latest super memory-foam mattress or those super-cool tennis shoes that we just have to have. We don't like discomfort and we fear the physical pain associated with war, sickness, and accidents. Jesus came to the earth knowing that “it was the will of the Lord to crush Him” (Isaiah 53:10). “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus willingly came to the earth knowing that He would be “oppressed and He [would be] 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” (Isaiah 53:7). Jesus faced one of man's greatest fears, that of physical pain. He endured pain so that we might be healed.
Jesus came to earth knowing that He would ultimately face death. Isaiah 53 tells us 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. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, 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” (Isaiah 53:8-11). It is fascinating that Isaiah wrote these words some eight or so centuries before the birth of Christ. Jesus came knowing that He would be cut off from the land of the living, that He would go the grave and that He would be physically crushed as an offering for our sins. Jesus did this for us knowing that He would see and be satisfied and many would be accounted as righteous because He Himself would bear their sins and iniquities.
Jesus came willingly and faced our greatest fears and conquered them all decisively. Rejection, physical pain, and death were all defeated by our Precious Savior. This simple message of love and grace outshines all the vain philosophies of men and the empty promises of other so-called saviors and wise men. “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:8-15).
There is no one like Jesus.