Isaiah 53:3
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Of all the great works in the Western canon, there are two that are nearly my favorites. And so it was fun this week, as I thought about Isaiah 53, 3, for those two favorites of mine to rise to the top of my brain. You won't be surprised by these two. The first, one of the greats in the Western canon, is that 1859 Charles Dickens novel, Tale of Two Cities. It's by far my favorite novel. I think it's arguably one of the top five best novels of all time. And the other great work in the Western canon is obviously the Chris Columbus film, the 1990 film Home Alone. With Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McAllister, right? He's eight years old. He's left home by accident as his family flies across the Atlantic Ocean to France.
and they don't even realize until they're halfway there that he's missing. Both of these works, interestingly, have a man of sorrows in them. In A Tale of Two Cities, it was written in 1859, so I don't feel bad giving you a little bit of a spoiler, there's a man named Sidney Carton. He's an alcoholic, he's self-loathing, and he's depressed, And he loves a woman he can never have.
And in Home Alone, there's a hermit, there's a recluse on the street. Down the street from Kevin's house, old man Marley, you remember him? He's despised and he's rejected on the street. The kids tell lies about him, rumors swirl. He's rejected and the children fear him. And in both the book and the movie, there are these amazing themes of sacrifice, and there are these arcs of redemption and restoration.
They're beautiful stories. And both these characters, Sidney Carton and Old Man Marley, become savior figures by the end. But neither of these two Man of Sorrow's characters carry their sorrows on guilt-free shoulders. No, they both have great moral stains. They both carry great moral guilt. They're beautiful stories. They pull at us emotionally. But in Isaiah 53, we see a man of sorrows.
And we see a much more beautiful story. Because it's true. Because the moral positions are reversed. And because this story addresses our greatest need. So read with me on the front of your bulletins. From Isaiah 53. 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. So just a little bit of context, the prophet Isaiah is prophesying in Judah, the southern kingdom, right? And I think as Justin said this morning, This was more than 700 years before the birth of Christ. And Judah faces threats. They face threats from without. There are enemies that are surrounding them, that are a constant threat to them. And they face threats from within their sin. They're constant and repeated rejecting of God's authority.
They've forsaken his good rule. And Isaiah tells them of judgment, but he tells them of a king, a divine king, and of a suffering servant, and of an anointed conqueror who will deliver them. And as we read, it becomes clear that they're all the same person. It's Jesus. So here in Isaiah 53, we're in the book of the suffering servant, and we're in the fourth song of the servant. This is the passage we read this morning, right? this beautiful hopes of the gospel, these glimpses of the gospel, almost more clearly than anywhere else, we see God's plan to save. We read this morning, stricken, smitten, and afflicted. We read he was pierced for our transgressions, and we read by his wounds we are healed. And just a few verses before, we get to see a picture of Jesus's character, a picture of his heart.
So we'll do two things over the next few minutes. First, we'll look at Jesus. We'll look at his heart and his character. And then we'll look at a few applications at the end. So first, he was despised and rejected. We were in Mark 6 this morning where Jesus returns to his hometown. And the people are astonished. And they're offended. And then they don't believe. And as Alex talked to us this morning, it wasn't just this neutral unbelief, right?
They took offense at him. And then Mark notes that Jesus actually marveled at their unbelief. It was a hardness of heart. It was a rejection. And then in the parallel passage in Luke, we see that the people were actually ready to kill Jesus. They had murder in their hearts. It's an act of rejection. Not just an, I don't know about this guy, I'll think about this later, like Alex said. It's an active rejection, a seething rejection, with prejudice, with spit.
Do you know what I mean by that, with spit? I exhibited this posture towards my parents as a child, far more than I'd like to admit. I have children, I've seen it. And if I'm honest, my heart can have this posture before good authority even now. You can picture a child who's been told no, whatever it is. And they turn to stomp off. And then the parent says something that maybe their parents said to them. I'm not finished with you yet.
And the child might stop. They cross their arms. They grit their teeth. Their eyes narrow. and they won't turn around. It's this complete rejection of good and right authority from their parent, and that's the posture of the people's heart in Mark 6. It's the posture of the people's heart who Isaiah is prophesying to, and so often it's the posture of our hearts, and it's certainly the posture of our hearts before Christ. Jesus wasn't just rejected, he was despised and rejected.
As one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised. What does that mean? As one from whom men hide their faces. At the beginning of Isaiah, as Isaiah is first pronouncing God's judgment on the people, taking them to task for their sin, exposing their sin, we hear the words of the Lord. I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. Ah, sinful nation, people loaded with guilt.
I will hide my eyes from you. Can you imagine a more devastating pronouncement than that the God of the universe who made you and has the right to judge you would hide his eyes from you? And then later in Isaiah, we're here in the book of the servant now and we hear about this suffering servant who will suffer and bear the sins of his people to save them. And we hide our eyes from him in judgment.
and rejection. Doesn't this make the great exchange of the gospel so stark and so magnificent? It's just the great reversal. I love how so many of our songs express this with a question. We sang tonight, right? Alas, and did my Savior bleed? With a question mark. Like, can this really be true? We have the same question in, and can it be? Can it really be true? What an amazing God we have. who would not reject us when we reject him.
He was despised and rejected as one from whom men hide their faces. And he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. I want to point out three aspects of this. One, Charles Spurgeon said that ordinary mourners, right? We all mourn. We have things that we mourn. He said that ordinary mourners sip at sorrow's bowl, but Christ drains it dry. Praise the Lord. We sang that this morning, right?
Some of my favorite songs we sang this morning and this evening. Christ drains that last dark drop for us. Ordinary mourners sip at sorrow's bowl, but Christ drains it dry. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Another aspect of that is that Jesus knew what he'd come to do. He knew that soon on the cross, he would quote David in Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Praise the Lord that he didn't forsake us. And third, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He didn't deserve his sorrows. He had never sinned. He didn't deserve God's punishment. He didn't deserve God's wrath. He didn't deserve to be forsaken by the Father. He who knew no sin became sin for us. Praise God. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we esteemed him not. We ignored him, we shunned him, and we judged him not worthy.
Can you imagine what it's like to be rejected by your creation? For a good parent who's given their child no reason to reject them, if that happens, you might have a picture of this. Can you imagine being rejected by your creation and still being willing to condescend to them, to come down to them in mercy and love and forgiveness and save them? Imagine Jesus' condescension. He's the king on the throne. He wants for nothing.
Love, he has it. Unity and fellowship, it's his more than we can even imagine in the Godhead. Adoration, yes. The stars in all the heavens recognize his lordship and willingly bow down to him. Power, there's not a speck of creation that doesn't respond to his voice. He's not dependent on anything with no wants or needs. He's holy and good and wise and free.
And yet, Jesus became a man where he would sweat, where he would get dirty, where he would grow tired, where he would thirst and where he would weep, and where he would be mistreated and bear our sin and shame. He had lovingly created us out of dust and that same creation cried for his murder and he was still willing to save. Praise God.
Three applications from all this. Number one, don't reject Jesus. There's someone sitting here today who has not bowed their knee to King Jesus. Maybe you don't recognize yourself to be a Christian at all. Maybe like we talked about this morning, you have mistaken familiarity and proximity to Jesus for true faith. You need to know that there's a God who made you and who has the right to judge you and he's holy and just and good and your sin has separated you from him and has earned you his wrath, has earned you his punishment, has earned you death.
But Jesus, in love, came down. He took on flesh. He became like us, but he never sinned. So that he could be our substitute, so that he could die on the cross in our place. And if we trust in him, then we get what he gets. He took our sin on his shoulders so that we could have his righteousness. And he didn't stay dead, he rose again. And what he has, we have, if we're united to him in faith. He suffered death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.
And if it wasn't for his suffering, then you're still in your sins and so am I. But that's not the case. So picture this man of sorrows, like we sang tonight, with head bowed, with scourges on his back, with a blood-stained brow, carrying the weight of the cross. And this man of sorrows looks, and his eyes and his heart say, come, don't reject Jesus. Number two, imitate Jesus in his humility. We talked about this a few weeks ago in Philippians 2. We should consider others more highly than ourselves in imitation of Christ, who, though being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. So Christian, you're feeling mistreated. Consider your Savior, your suffering.
Look to the one who suffered in your place. You're doubting God's goodness. Remember what he's done for you in Christ. And if the Lord has brought you low, consider Jesus who Hebrews 2 tells us was made for a little while lower than the angels. Imitate Jesus's humility. That verse in Hebrews 2 brings us to the third application. Be spurred on to deeper love and trust. So consider him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, what happens next?
He is now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. And what he has, if you're united to him in faith, what he has is yours, if you're united to him. It also says that all things are put in subjection to him under his feet. And that's true of your suffering and your sorrows. it says a few verses down that Jesus has destroyed the one who had the power of death, the devil. So he no longer has power over you. We're new creations. We walk in the spirit.
We're no longer slaves to sin, and death has no power over us. And then a chapter and a half later, we read that we have help when we're tempted, and we have grace and mercy in time of need. So be spurred on to deeper love and trust. Don't reject Jesus. Imitate Christ's humility and be spurred on by what he's done for us to deeper love and trust. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?
Let's pray. heavenly father you are so good to us you are good to us in the gospel we have your promises we have the sure and steadfast anchor of christ who's gone before us so may we in faith take hold of his promises may we live confidently and joyfully with our hearts and our eyes always pointing towards him we ask this in jesus name amen