Disfigured Beauty
Walter Henegar | Dec 10, 2023
Isaiah 52:13-53:3 (ESV)
13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lifted up,
and shall be exalted.
14 As many were astonished at you—
his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
15 so shall he sprinkle many nations.
Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,
for that which has not been told them they see,
and that which they have not heard they understand.
53:1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 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.
3 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.
Sermon Summary
Isaiah's prophecy of the Suffering Servant suggests that Jesus was not physically attractive, and nothing in the Gospel accounts suggests otherwise. Why? Why wouldn't he be the most beautiful human who ever lived? The answer, Isaiah suggests, lies in his mission to rescue humanity from our dead-end quest to trust in our own beauty. Jesus challenges us to fight to find beauty in the ugly places of grace, and to follow fading beauty to the unfading beauty of God himself.
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