Man of Sorrows - The Despised Man
- Paul Downie
- 3 days ago
- 13 min read
Isaiah 53:3 NIVUK
[3] He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
On the fringes of modern Christianity, in small communities we would rather disown because they have forgotten what it means to truly be a Christian, there are groups who hate. They hate people who oppose them. They hate people who are different to them.
They just hate.
While I am more than happy to condemn these people as completely disobedient to the Word of God (which they are), I am aware that, in my early days as a Christian, I was raised among some of them.
Because in the polarised, sectarian society in which I lived then, hate was legitimised in certain situations. It was justified.
But that was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. It was always wrong. It will always be wrong.
And it is wrong for two reasons:
We are commanded to love (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27; John 13:34-35; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14)
And this one ought to stop us in our tracks and give us serious food for thought... Jesus was hated.
You read that correctly. Jesus was hated.
Now, that might surprise you.
But should it?
Let me ask you something. Say you have someone you love. Say you want to take them on a date. Well, you could go to the movies or a nice restaurant, or a picnic in the beauty of nature.
But would you consider falsely accusing them, questioning them, torturing them, nailing them to a wooden cross and leaving them there to die?
Of course not!
And it's not because these actions are outside of your budget or lack a certain romance, it’s because you would never do these things to someone you love, because these are not the actions of someone who loves.
No, these are the actions of someone who hates. Of someone who really hates, in fact.
We need to stop the Disney-fication of the Bible. There are parts of it that are not cute. There are parts of it that are not lovely. There are parts of it that are violent and ugly and difficult to stomach.
Jesus was not just disliked or disagreed with. The Jewish leaders – whose very religion centred on love for God, their neighbours and themselves - absolutely despised him. And this hatred was visceral. It was dangerous. It got to the stage when they were intending to do Jesus severe physical harm.
And then did it.
This is not at all an easy or comfortable subject to cover. But cover it we must, because Jesus told us this:
John 15:18-25 NIVUK
[18] ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. [19] If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. [20] Remember what I told you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. [21] They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. [22] If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. [23] Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. [24] If I had not done among them the works no-one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. [25] But this is to fulfil what is written in their Law: “They hated me without reason.”
In other words, those who hate Jesus will also hate us.
As difficult it is for us to contemplate this, we must understand the horrific treatment that was handed out to Jesus, because, since we love and follow Him, it may well be happen to us too.
The first part of this ill-treatment is that He was Despised.
Despised
Isaiah 53:3 NIVUK
[3] He was despised and rejected by mankind...
Now, there are no two ways about it: this is a strong word.
The word used here in Hebrew doesn’t just mean to treat as something of low value.
No, it means to treat with utter contempt, to be disgusted by something, to treat as contemptible, vile, worthless.
The very polar opposite of how we see Jesus.
And that ought to shock us. How could someone we prize so highly be viewed so poorly by anyone, least of all those who had longed for centuries for His coming?
It doesn’t seem to make sense.
Until we realise why.
And then we understand it, but profoundly disagree with it.
You see, to use a modern term, Jesus was a disruptor. The Jewish leaders had a nice thing lined up. They were all cosy with the Romans, with whom they had an arrangement: you maintain the peace; we let you keep your place (the Temple).
The Jews saw Jesus as someone who disrupted this peace, who threw a spanner in their works, who made life awkward for them. Hence this piece of nasty plotting;
John 11:47-53 NIVUK
[47] Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. ‘What are we accomplishing?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many signs. [48] If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.’ [49] Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! [50] You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’ [51] He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, [52] and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. [53] So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
Now, this tells you the unfathomable depths of their utter hatred for Jesus. Due to the Roman occupation, they had no right to execute anyone under their law – the Romans had removed this from them (John 18:31). So their insidious plot was to present Jesus as an enemy of Caesar, and then have Him executed, rather than as a blasphemer, which is what they believed Him to be, for which they could not execute Him (John 19:12).
Which is remarkable.
It shows you the terrible depths of their hatred and how far they had sunk as human beings.
But let’s not think for one moment that this is a ‘Jewish problem'.
It is not.
It is a human problem.
More Christians were martyred for their faith in the last century than all the previous centuries added together. And it’s still happening.
And why?
Inconvenient truths.
The reality that we are sinners who are unable to save ourselves and need a Saviour.
That is the single most inconvenient truth of them all.
The disciples came to believe it. Ten of them were martyred. One died in exile.
Many millions of Christians have believed it and have met with the same fate.
So yes, there were very many thousands of people who loved Jesus at different times. But when the heat was on and the chips were down and the Jewish leaders colluded with the Romans to take Him down, they were all nowhere to be found.
And the people who counted within the Jewish authorities?
Most of them hated Jesus with a passion and wanted Him dead.
To their own detriment.
This hatred led to Jesus not just being despised, but also Destroyed.
Destroyed
Isaiah 53:3 NIVUK
[3] He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
In my next post, we will consider how Jesus was physically destroyed by the Jews and the Romans. It will not be pleasant reading at all, but it will be necessary.
Maybe you wonder why.
I want to ask you a question in response. There are immense treasures all over the world that are held in secure display cabinets, watched over by CCTV and sophisticated alarm systems, and monitored twenty-four hours by security personnel.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why?
It’s not the object itself that causes all this fuss, it’s the price someone is willing to pay for it.
For example, James Howells is currently suing Newport council to get access to search their landfill site.
Why?
Because he accidentally discarded a computer hard drive. The hard drive itself is not of great value. On that hard drive is a BitCoin wallet, the value of which is considered to be £620 million. Not because the hard drive is valuable – it isn’t – but because of what people would be willing to pay to buy its contents. Which aren’t even tangible.
Why is this important?
We devalue our salvation if we do not consider the high price Jesus paid for it.
Our economies are filled with cheap, disposable goods that we use a few times and then discard, much to the pain of our environment, because they mean little to us.
Our salvation cannot be something like that. Because it is valuable. Incredibly so.
Because the price Jesus paid for it is very high.
And so, although it’s a deeply uncomfortable thought, we should meditate on the high price He paid to save us. That is why we have Communion (Luke 22:17-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
In my next post, we will take a look at the incredibly high price Jesus paid physically. In this post, we see the price that Jesus paid emotionally.
And let’s be real: it was very, very high.
Luke 22:41-44 NIVUK
[41] He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, [42] ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ [43] An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. [44] And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
The sheer weight of the emotional strain on Jesus, and the earnestness of His prayers, caused the capillaries in His forehead to burst and blood to drip from His sweat glands. Medical journals are pretty much unanimous that this condition is rare, but occurs when someone is under deep physical or psychological stress.
That is the path Jesus walked.
What’s more, He had an angel with Him to comfort Him and even that was not enough.
Such was the burden He carried for you and I.
Because, you see, Jesus was known as the ‘Man of Sorrows’ (or ‘Man of Suffering’) not just because He felt it, but because He bore it for us; He was familiar with pain not just because He felt it, but because He bore it for us.
That is what this verse is all about.
So, yes, Jesus was destroyed on the cross, but the destruction He bore was ours – we deserved it, not Him.
At the centre of many towns and villages all across Europe are small memorials of those who died in the World Wars and in subsequent conflicts. It is right that they are there. It is fitting. The sacrifice of those who fought and laid down their lives for our freedom deserve to be remembered. The sacrifice of those still fighting for our freedom, even those from other lands, should never be forgotten.
But the greatest sacrifice of all was Jesus Christ’s on the cross. We ought to meet that sacrifice with remembrance, repentance and obedience.
That is the fitting way in which it ought to be remembered.
Lastly, we see that Jesus was not just despised and destroyed, but also Disdained.
Disdained
Isaiah 53:3 NIVUK
[3] Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
This ought to make those of us who value Jesus Christ turn away in shock and horror.
The picture is too awful to contemplate.
Let me explain it to you.
When I was eighteen, the film ‘Schindler’s List’ came out. This is a film that just has to be seen. Somehow, I don’t remember how, my family managed to get a copy of this film on VCR and decided that we would watch it one night.
One of my sisters is very squeamish (although, paradoxically, was a massive fan of a certain British medical drama – we could never quite work that one out). We told her very clearly that this was a film she perhaps should not watch due to the absolutely necessary level of violence in it.
She insisted that she wanted to see it.
She spent most of the next hundred and ninety-five minutes hiding behind a cushion, screaming and crying. The scenes on screen were awful, but at the same time, you felt like it would be doing the victims of Nazi aggression a disservice if you turned away.
What we see here, depicted so sparsely by Isaiah, is a situation where the violence meted out against Jesus has caused people to recoil in fear and horror.
And that is not surprising.
The beating that Jesus received before He left the barracks to head out of the city to Golgotha was savage (Matthew 27:27-31; Mark 15:16-20; John 19:1-3). The sight of Jesus leaving the barracks naked, a crown of spiky desert thorns causing blood to course down His face, bruising all across His head and His body, deep lacerations down His back that exposed bare flesh or even bone, screaming in agony as He bore a roughly hewn wooden cross on His bloodied spine, would have been absolutely horrific.
Then add to that the terror of seeing Him nailed to the cross, every joint in His body jolted as they dropped it into place, struggling for air and causing Himself unimaginable pain just to breathe, while the religious leaders mocked Him and spat on Him...
Wouldn’t you have turned away?
The very act of crucifixion was reserved for the most serious offenders, for those whom their society considered as the lowest of the low. Even Pontius Pilate himself said this of Jesus:
Luke 23:13-15 NIVUK
[13] Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, [14] and said to them, ‘You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. [15] Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us; as you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death.
And yet, in an act of chronic injustice, Jesus was handed over to be crucified between a pair of criminals as a sop to the Jewish authorities.
On a human level, this could not be more wrong.
But that was the level of disdain that the Jewish leaders had for their own Messiah.
It is quite incredible.
Conclusion
Isaiah 53:3 NIVUK
[3] He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Most of us go to the movies to be entertained.
There are a couple of movies about serious subjects that I have seen which didn’t leave me with a positive feeling when I left the cinema or turned off the TV, but I still felt were more than worth seeing: films like ‘Dead Man Walking’ or ‘John Q’ or ‘Saving Private Ryan’ or ‘The Killing Fields’.
Or ‘Schindler’s List’.
These are movies which make you think, and maybe even change your mind on certain issues.
There is a tendency among those who study the Bible to skip the heavy stuff and focus on the nice parts: the promises, the platitudes, the healings, the miracles.
However, there is also a time and place for dealing with the heavier, darker aspects of the Bible, because many of them speak to those who are undergoing similar situations.
Moreover, the darkness makes us more grateful for the light.
It’s a bit like comparing bubblegum pop music to the more darker, more confessional side. Some of us just want to dance; others of us want to hear lyrics we can identify with and hear people ‘sing my truth’.
This verse is hard. Incredibly so. The truth that it highlights about Jesus’ suffering on earth is very hard to stomach.
But stomach it we must.
Because uncomfortable verses like this are a necessary part of the Bible. As Paul stated:
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIVUK
[16] All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, [17] so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
So how does a verse that teaches us the facts of how Jesus was despised, destroyed and disdained do that? What can we learn through all the unwarranted hatred and violence?
I believe that everything we learn about the crucifixion teaches us two very important facts:
Sin is serious. The reason any Jesus had to undergo this horrendous treatment is because we are sinners (1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21). And not just as a group. Not just as a collective. The high price Jesus paid was not just because He was dying for a high number of sinners, but because sin itself demands a high price. The violence of the cross tells us just how seriously God takes sin. Staring into the eyes of our crucified Saviour ought to be all we need to repent of our sins and follow Him.
Jesus was human. This might seem like I am stating the obvious, but the reality that Jesus Christ experienced every facet of our human experience is a wonderful, life-changing truth and a tremendous encouragement (Hebrews 4:15). Other people might give us advice about our life, but Jesus actually lived it. And so there is no better person we can follow.
I have a great respect for anyone who works in the emergency services. Seeing that level of suffering and pain every day and being able to cope with it is a very special thing.
But every Christian must come face to face with an extreme level of suffering and do so often. We cannot forget what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. It is too special. Too unique. Too wonderful.
Even if it is also too painful.
But if that pain helps keep us on the right path, then it can only be a good thing.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, my heart is moved beyond compare by the heartbreak You endured to go to the cross and save me. I realise now the seriousness of my sin. I renounce it and repent of it. I will follow only You. Amen.
Questions
Why is it necessary to look at difficult verses such as this? What effect do they have?
What did Jesus suffer emotionally as He approached the cross? Why is this important?
What did you learn from this difficult verse? How will you apply it?
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