Man of Sorrows - The Disbelieved Man
- Paul Downie
- 7 days ago
- 17 min read
Isaiah 53:1-2 NIVUK
[1] Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? [2] 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.
When I was at school, my teachers weren’t quite as encouraging as they are now. But still, I was raised with the idea that children have potential – that they can achieve great things, do what they want, be what they want.
Of course, nowadays our young people somehow believe they can defy the laws of nature, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Well, once you have those ideas inside you, you try, don’t you? You try to live up to your potential. You aim for hopes and dreams. You set your sights in a career.
And sometimes it works.
But sometimes it doesn’t.
More often than not, dreams of fame and fortune fade to almost nothing, desires for greatness disappear and we find ourselves compromising to support those who depend on us.
What happens later – particularly for men, it seems – is that those dreams are resurrected. We hit the middle years. We realise that we are halfway to our grave. And so we set out to live that dream once more. We buy a stupidly expensive and ridiculously impractical car. We trade our wife in for a younger model, who has seen the ridiculously impractical car and thinks we have money, even though we bought the thing on a credit deal that we’ll still be paying when our joints and internal organs are gradually turning to mush. We dress like we’re thirty years younger – like mutton dressed as lamb. We fake a life we never had and still don’t.
And during this ultimately pathetic ego trip of a mid-life crisis, we leave a trail of broken hearts and unnecessary debt in our wake.
All because we cannot accept who we are.
All because we cannot accept obscurity.
Our young people are manifesting this insanity at an earlier age now. They strut about on video clips like demented peacocks, desperate for attention, getting involved in ever more extreme behaviour so they can stand out from the crowd and be unique and special.
They, like us, are unable to accept obscurity.
But these verses conceal a little explored fact:
For most of Jesus’ life – ten elevenths to be precise – He lived in utter anonymity and obscurity.
Now, I am aware that there are apocryphal stories of Jesus performing miracles as a boy. There are rumours that He made pigeons out of clay and then breathed life into them, or cursed a boy and he died.
None of these have the ring of truth about them.
Why?
Look what John – a first hand witness of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, said after the miracle at the wedding in Cana:
John 2:11 NIVUK
[11] What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
The miracles weren’t just there for Jesus to show off. They were His calling card, to prove just who He was. So if this was the first, it stands to reason that there were no miracles before it.
Secondly, we also have the somewhat incredulous reaction to Jesus’ preaching in His home town:.
Matthew 13:54-57 NIVUK
[54] Coming to his home town, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ they asked. [55] ‘Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? [56] Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’ [57] And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own town and in his own home.’
Now, if Jesus had been performing miraculous acts since His youth, would they have had this reaction?
I don’t think so.
That leaves us with the conclusion that His first miracle took place when He was thirty years old, and this means that for thirty years He was effectively a nobody.
Paul would appear to back this idea up:
Philippians 2:5-7 NIVUK
[5] In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: [6] who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; [7] rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
The phrase ‘made Himself nothing’ could almost be re-translated nowadays as ‘cancelled Himself’. For thirty years.
And in this meditation, we will explore what that meant, beginning with the first aspect of Incredulity.
Incredulity
Isaiah 53:1 NIVUK
[1] Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Towards the end if 2024, the media was full of bold predictions that a large solar flare was headed in our direction and that the Northern Lights would be visible.
Now, where I live, that is normally not possible. We’re too far south. Light pollution is too strong.
However, just after 11pm, I thought I would take a chance and go outside. So while my wife and daughter were busy telling me not to bother and that I was wasting my time, I put on my shoes and an outdoor jacket, crossed the road to our neighbourhood green, and stood in the darkness under a clear night sky, scanning it for the Northern Lights.
Minutes later, I sent a photo to my wife and daughter and they came running.
It was true.
We were standing beneath the Northern Lights.
That night and the next morning, our social media feed was full of pictures of it.
But also disgruntled, frustrated and even doubting posts from those who had refused to believe that the Northern Lights would come, were angry that they had missed out, and were directing their ire towards those who saw them – even accusing them of faking their pictures!
Human beings haven’t changed too much over the centuries, have they?
Isaiah’s point here matches what John said about Jesus’ coming:
John 1:10-11 NIVUK
[10] He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. [11] He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
In other words, when Jesus came to this earth, He came to those who had the background and context of centuries of theological teaching and prophecy and law. They were in a desperate situation. They longed for a Messiah. It seemed like the time was right.
But they didn’t believe.
And many still don’t.
Isaiah highlights two things that they did not believe:
They didn’t believe the Word.
That much is clear. The Jewish leaders had terrible problems with Jesus’ teaching. It just wasn’t to their taste at all. This is what they said about it:
John 7:48-49 NIVUK
[48] ‘Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? [49] No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law – there is a curse on them.’
John 8:48 NIVUK
[48] The Jews answered him, ‘Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?’
Jesus’ teaching was fundamentally different to theirs. It came with the clarity and moral authority that theirs completely lacked. And that was attractive (Matthew 7:28-29; Mark 1:22; Luke 4:32). The crowds loved it. It was forthright, honest, full of integrity. No equivocation. No quibbling. No useless arguments about obscure concepts.
Just clear truth presented in a clear way by a man with clear integrity.
But the Jewish leadership hated it. To them, Jesus was a dangerous populist; a clear and present danger to their place in their society and their Temple (John 11:47-48).
And so the people who were scholarly and intellectual, who knew their theology and history, who were clear on their identity – the very people who should have believed in Jesus, did not.
But Isaiah also says that they would not believe in His works.
And that is perhaps the most astonishing thing of all.
Right in front of them, in miraculous acts that they struggled to explain but could not, Jesus’ nature and identity were on show.
But they still did not believe:
John 10:24-27 NIVUK
[24] The Jews who were there gathered round him, saying, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ [25] Jesus answered, ‘I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, [26] but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. [27] My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:37-38 NIVUK
[37] Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. [38] But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.’
As John himself noted, quoting this very passage:
John 12:37-41 NIVUK
[37] Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. [38] This was to fulfil the word of Isaiah the prophet: ‘Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ [39] For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: [40] ‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn – and I would heal them.’ [41] Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.
It is truly extraordinary.
A nation that had desperately longed for their Messiah to come, longed for God to bear His arm, show His strength and demonstrate His glory, yet here it was, in flesh and blood, and they did not believe in Him.
There could be many explanations for this.
We could say they were too beaten down by their predicament. That’s quite possible.
We could say that the religious and political situation – with the might of the Roman Empire breathing down their necks – made it hard for them to believe, that’s also true.
But Isaiah himself introduces another cause – quoted in part by John earlier:
Isaiah 6:9-10 NIVUK
[9] He said, ‘Go and tell this people: ‘ “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” [10] Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.’
In other words, the message was audible (like words), but the people would not hear it. It was visible (like works) and they would not see it.
Why?
Because their hearts were calloused against God, their eyes were closed and their ears were dull.
As Paul explained it later:
2 Corinthians 4:4 NIVUK
[4] The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
And why were the Jewish leaders, who ought to have been believers, in this awful situation?
Because they had turned away from God, ignored His calls and their hearts became hard to them. As Paul said;
Romans 10:21 NIVUK
[21] But concerning Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.’
Jesus – even Jesus: preacher of parables, doer of miracles, raiser of the dead – even this wonderful man was not believed by people who should have believed Him.
And that, by itself, is tough.
But what followed is even more so. Because after Incredulity, we move on to Fragility.
Fragility
Isaiah 53:2 NIVUK
[2] He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. https://bible.com/bible/113/isa.53.2.NIVUK
For a long time, I had a weakness in my lower back.
Until I found a treatment that worked and I got rid of it, I found out just how irritating and debilitating lower back issues can be. I put it out reaching for something from a kitchen cupboard, sneezing in the shower, even exercising to try to get rid of the thing.
It was very annoying.
Contrary to what you might expect , being tender and fragile isn’t a lot of fun at all. It’s frustrating. You see people doing things you can’t without a care in the world and it simply reminds you of your weakness.
And it hurts.
This verse is jarring to the macho, cowboy theology which teaches might is always right.
Because there were times when Jesus was vulnerable.
Very vulnerable.
Take the time when He was barely a toddler and Herod came after Him to kill Him. Did Jesus take His stand outside their house in the ancient equivalent of a diaper, spin around until He posed with His hands on His hips in sheer defiance, His superhero cape billowing in the breeze, and stare down Herod's men with His laser vision?
No.
Not at all.
He fled.
He and His family fled for their lives (Matthew 2:13-18).
And I couldn’t care less what my right wing brothers and sisters make of this, because it is true: He and His family became migrants and asylum seekers in a richer nation to which they did not belong.
Does that seem familiar to you?
The Bible teaches this about Jesus:
Luke 2:40 NIVUK
[40] And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.
Luke 2:52 NIVUK
[52] And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
But we forget the crucial part of this: He grew!
He didn’t pop out of Mary’s womb two metres tall and built like a brick house. He started off as a baby, and then He grew.
Then we see the event when Jesus showed extraordinary Biblical knowledge and awareness as a child in the Temple (Luke 2:41-50). We may wonder, like Jesus, why His parents were so anxious. Wasn’t this the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Creator and Sustainer of all the Earth?
Yes!
But He was a child!
And this is an extraordinary truth!
Why?
I’ll let Irish poetry Cecil Frances Alexander explain:
For he is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us He grew;
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us He knew;
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness.
The fact of His fragility, the fact of His weakness, the fact of His vulnerability is part of His experience of our fragile humanity.
And it isn’t just confined to Jesus’ childhood. Jesus felt tired (Matthew 8:24; Mark 4:38; Luke 8:23; John 4:6). Jesus felt hungry (Matthew 21:18; Mark 11:12). Jesus felt thirsty (John 19:28).
All of them human vulnerabilities.
Yet Jesus felt them all.
It is this beautiful, wonderful truth that contributes this:
Hebrews 4:15-16 NIVUK
[15] For we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. [16] Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
So, you see, if you've ever feel fragile or vulnerable or weak or exposed, you are in the best of company:
So did Jesus.
In Him we see a Man who was treated with incredulity because there were some – often the people who counted – who just could not believe who He was. He was vulnerable, both as a child and an adult.
But perhaps the most striking truth for us all at this time is the third aspect: Anonymity.
Anonymity
Isaiah 53:2 NIVUK
[2] He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
This is really quite startling.
Because there are two things modern culture cannot stand: silence and anonymity.
The evidence against silence is clear. Why else would we take earphones or headphones with us virtually everywhere we go?
Why else would we have the need to have the TV or radio on when we’re at home alone?
Why else would we feel the need to fill the air with inane and meaningless chatter just to fill the void?
Nature abhors a vacuum. Modern culture abhors silence.
And it also abhors anonymity.
We are taught from a young age that we must stand out, make ourselves heard, be someone. We have created reality TV and influencer culture that democratise fame and make it possible for people who have no discernable talent to rise to the top. We have even placed people in a position where they have to be famous and admired just to make a living. And so we have desperate people who have recognised their lack of useful abilities and instead have opted for a faster route to fame and fortune, making ever more outlandish and attention-hogging videos online.
What have we done?
What have we become?
Who have we become?
Even our workplaces function like that. I worked beside a small, gentle colleague who was outstanding at her job.
But whenever there were promotions, she would routinely be passed over because she was quiet. So quiet was she that there were days when no-one noticed when she was in work, and no-one noticed when she was gone.
It’s never people who are quietly brilliant at their jobs who get rewarded. It’s more often those who are loudmouthed, boastful and rambunctious.
Even if they are nowhere near as good at what they do.
Compare our culture to this verses and we are in for a massive shock.
Isaiah prophesied that for most of Jesus’ life, He would be a nobody.
What’s more – and we might find this hard to take – He wasn’t even that impressive to look at. From His appearance, He was ordinary.
He was the type of person you could walk past in the street and not recognise.
He was the type of person that a girl could point out to her parents as a prospect match and they would say, ‘Well, we think you could do better...’
He was someone who would win no beauty contests and would be on the cover of no magazines.
He was anonymous.
For thirty years.
Thirty years! Some of us couldn’t manage being anonymous for thirty seconds!
And He was gentle with it. Not strong-armed. Not aggressive. Not pushing Himself to the front. As Isaiah said earlier:
Isaiah 42:1-4 NIVUK
[1] ‘Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. [2] He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. [3] A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; [4] he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope.’
He wasn’t into reputation management or controlling the narrative or fan meet and greets. Look at this discussion with His brothers:
John 7:1-9 NIVUK
[1] After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. [2] But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, [3] Jesus’ brothers said to him, ‘Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. [4] No-one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.’ [5] For even his own brothers did not believe in him. [6] Therefore Jesus told them, ‘My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. [7] The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. [8] You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.’ [9] After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.
Don’t get me wrong: Jesus wasn’t shy. No-one who feeds five thousand and four thousand people could possibly be said to be a recluse.
But with Jesus there is a sense of timing and balance: knowing when to be private and knowing when to be public; being acutely aware of the need to show integrity in both spheres of existence.
And to spend thirty years in private preparing for three years in public.
We so often get this wrong.
Jesus gets it right.
And in doing so, He stands besides the wallflowers, the shy, those who suffer from a chronic lack of self-confidence, the obscure, the overlooked, the neglected.
Because for thirty years, the Lord of all was a nobody.
And nobody noticed.
Conclusion
Matthew 13:54-57 NIVUK
[54] Coming to his home town, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ they asked. [55] ‘Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? [56] Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’ [57] And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own town and in his own home.’
When I arrived in Romania, I got the chance to do something that, according to my organisation’s practices, I should not have done.
Their practice was for incoming missionaries to spend three months in language learning and cultural acquisition, and to launch into ministry only when this had completed.
However, I had been on mission with a member of a local church a few years earlier and somehow I had made an impression. He’d heard through the grapevine that I was coming to his home town and spread the word that I should be given the opportunity to preach.
And so, when I arrived in one particular church, I was asked if I would deliver a message. So I did as I was asked. Rude not to.
Afterwards, a man who later became a good friend and colleague admitted to me that his expectations had been low. He'd seen me heading for the pulpit and had thought to himself, ‘Really? This guy? What can this little Scottish guy teach us?’
However, after he told me this, he added, ‘But you were good!’
Like many people who have tried to do something for Jesus, I have experienced being written off – on more than one occasion. It happens. It’s an occupational hazard.
But nothing to the extent that Jesus Himself experienced.
So these verses have become an enormous encouragement to me.
And also a real challenge – sometimes even a spike to my ego.
Whenever I get frustrated because someone doesn’t seem to be listening to me, I remind myself that people responded to Jesus with incredulity, and the people who ought to have believed the most actually believed the least.
If I find myself in a position where I feel fragile or vulnerable or weak or exposed, I remind myself that Jesus began life in this way and is well acquainted with how it feels.
If I find myself desiring to be someone special, I remind myself that Jesus was a nobody for thirty years. There is no shame in anonymity. In fact, there is great dignity. It takes a lot of strength to resist the temptation to feed your ego and to take the lowest place. It takes more strength to stay out of the spotlight than it does to seek it
This is indeed an alien message for our world. We live among attention seekers who are desperate for what the artist Andy Warhol called their ‘five minutes of fame’ – sometimes at a ridiculous price.
But if we want to be like Jesus, we cannot be this way.
Instead, we must patiently wait for our time in the sun, and keep doing what is right in the meantime.
And if it happens, it happens.
If it doesn’t, then we should content ourselves with being faithful.
Because that is more important.
And we should realise that we have a Saviour who knows precisely how we feel.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I thank You that You have walked every path where I’ve trodden my feet. You know precisely how I feel. Thank You for entering my world and facing my pain. Help me to follow You through it all. Amen.
Questions
Why did the Jewish leaders disbelieve Jesus?
Why is it important for us to know that Jesus was fragile? How is this fragility communicated in the Bible?
Why is it important that Jesus spent ten elevenths of His life in complete anonymity and obscurity? During this time, did He show strength or weakness. Why?
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