Page 19 - CWW CHRISTMAS

December 13

DESPISED AND REJECTED
Jimmy Dorrell

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no
beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire
him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of sorrows and familiar with
suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed
him not.”
Isaiah 53:2–3

Christians often have a need to picture Jesus as a pretty baby, a handsome
teenager, and an attractive man. Because of respect for God in the flesh, our temptation
is to attribute human physical traits that set him apart from the ordinary Israelite. We
resist the Messiah image as despised and rejected. Yet Isaiah clearly stated that when
he came, there would be nothing about his physical appearance “that we should desire
him.”
In our culture, which spends vulgar amounts of money on cosmetics, clothing,
shoes, hair, nails, and overall appearance, the idea that we are called to follow One who
did just the opposite is challenging. Jesus was known to his disciples for his love, truth-
speaking, healing, miracles, and acceptance of the rejected of his culture. He was
despised and rejected by the religious leaders of his day, not acknowledged for
contemporary marks of outward religion. He healed on the Sabbath, touched lepers, sat
down with an adulterous Samaritan woman, and even turned over the tables of the
predators at his Father’s house. For his unwillingness to comply with the culture’s
standards, he was arrested, beaten, mocked, and crucified.
Our pseudo-Christian culture claims we can have it both ways--follow Jesus and
the culture. Yet the Apostle John’s judgment on the seven churches in Revelation
demonstrates how we easily “forsake our first love” (Rev 2:4) and become “dead,” even
when having a “reputation for being alive” (Rev 3:1).