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.
Isaiah 53:2 NIVUK
There is something almost every movie depiction and many paintings of Jesus get completely wrong. They prioritise style over substance, marketing over reality, fairytale over exactly how things are.
There is a startling reality in this verse that shatters all of our illusions.
Jesus was not handsome. He was not drop-dead gorgeous. He was not a hunk.
Jesus was an ordinary man. For thirty years.
Before His appearance was marred beyond that of anyone (Isaiah 52:14), he looked just like anyone else. He did not have a striking or memorable appearance. Until His ministry began, He was the type of person you could pass in the street and not even notice.
Even His very name – Jesus – was actually striking only in its ordinariness. It’s the Greek version of Joshua, meaning ‘God saves’. It was a very common name at the time.
So we have a common-looking man with a common-sounding name. A man who did not stand out. A man who, if we were to meet Him before His ministry began, would not appear to be special.
I find this a wonderfully comforting thought.
Many of us struggle really deeply with our identity and feel like there’s something wrong with us because we are invisible. We feel there is nothing special about us, nothing to make us stand out.
But if we feel ordinary, as if there is nothing special about us; if we feel that we cannot compete with the noisy and the talented people around us; if we feel like giving up because we can never win, then the coming of Jesus Christ at Christmas ought to fill our hearts with joy.
Why?
Because beneath all the parties and the food and the tinsel there is a beautiful truth to uncovered. That truth is that Jesus did not just come as a man, He came as an ordinary man. He was an ordinary man who came to expound an extraordinary truth, which Paul explains to the Corinthians:
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no-one may boast before him.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 NIVUK
Understand this: you might feel ordinary, or even less than ordinary. But in a plan that was truly extraordinary, Jesus Christ came as an ordinary man to save ordinary people. And now, His plan is to use thoroughly ordinary people for His glory, because His glory will truly shine in the ordinariness and do something extraordinary.
Never be afraid of being ordinary. For thirty years, Jesus appeared to be ordinary too. He knows how it feels. And He is able to do extraordinary things though you.
Questions
Did you ever think that Jesus was an ordinary man for thirty years?
How does it make you feel to realise that there was nothing special or attractive about Him?
How can Jesus use you, as an ordinary person, to do something truly extraordinary?
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