Do We Despise Him? – Sunday, April 15, 1984
Almost two thousand years following the mortal ministry of Jesus Christ, it may be difficult for us to imagine Him rejected, to imagine Him persecuted and scorned. We revere and worship Him, and He is worshipped by Christians worldwide for the divinity of His birth, the perfect purity of His life, the remarkable sacrifice of His death, and the hope we have in His resurrection.
And yet His coming was prophesied not only as hopeful, but as troubled. Seven hundred years before His birth the prophet Isaiah wrote: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”1
Surely, we do not despise Him. Surely, we have not turned our faces from Him. And yet, in His atoning sacrifice, each of our sins has a part. Jesus Christ did not die because of the jealous whim of an apostate clergy, or because an ancient government would not stand against the injustice of His crucifixion. Jesus went to the cross for us to atone for the sins which separate us from Him; to save us, in spite of the ways in which our lives have despised Him. Jesus went to the cross for us, even though we may have turned our faces from Him.
Therefore, we must not look in others for examples of betrayal. Surely, we may find the Pilate or the Chief Priest, the proud and open disdainer of Christ. But it was Christ’s chief disciple Peter who denied the Savior at the time of His humiliation before the Romans. Just so, there is in each of us who are His modern disciples the moment of failure, the moment of sin and doubt. Christ anticipated these moments when our faces would turn from Him, when we would despise Him with our lives. He anticipated them; and He died for them.
The prophet Isaiah continues: “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with his stripes we are healed.”2
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is our guarantee. We are healed, if only we will not turn from Him, if only we will not despise Him with our lives; if only we will love Him and live our lives in harmony with the simple grace and love He brought to the world two thousand years ago.
1 Old Testament, Isaiah 53:3.
2 Old Testament. Isaiah 53:5.
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April 15, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,852