"(His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men)" Isaiah 52:14

OLD TESTAMENT PARENTHESES (21)

"(His visage was so marred more than any man, and
his form more than the sons of men)" Isaiah 52:14

THIS the most dreadful and the most sacred of all the Bible parentheses. It stands between the prophecy of the world's amazement at the horror of the cross and its startled realisation of its glorious outcome. What can we say about this dreadful reduction of the perfect Son of Man to a being so maltreated as to be hardly human any more?

I do not find it spiritually profitable to dwell too much on the actual physical sufferings of the Saviour. Enough is said in the New Testament to impress us with their reality, so that we know that Isaiah's words are not poetical hyperbole but a sober prediction of the literal agonies which Jesus suffered. We get little spiritual gain from trying to imagine them, for such an exercise may harrow our emotions without transforming our character. It may well be that the chief purpose of this parenthesis is to stress the sheer humiliation and degradation of it all.

SEEMINGLY it had to be. Abel had shed his life's blood for God, but his death was swift and unexpected. Stephen laid down his life for the truth but although his was a painful death it was mercifully soon over. Christ's death was quite different. Even when we accept that He had to die for our sins we still cannot begin to understand why that death had to be accompanied by such excruciating agonies. This atoning death evidently had to be in the context of horrifying agonies, physical, mental and spiritual. And it was my sin that made all this so necessary.

MERCIFULLY I will never see the marred condition of that holy countenance, for in resurrection glory it is now radiantly beautiful. No word of pity or sadness came from those who saw their risen Lord.

THE couple were not aware of anything unusual in the face of the Companion who went with them to Emmaus. His feet were marked but not mangled, for He walked freely on the road. They sat with Him at the table, but only recognised Him when those nail-marked hands grasped the loaf and broke it. It seems that while the scars of His passion remained, they left no disfigurement -- rather the reverse.

WHEN it is sanctified, suffering can impart an extra quality to a beautiful face. The dreadful pains of Calvary have surely done this to our beloved Saviour. All the ugliness of His brutal treatment has somehow been displaced by an added beauty which might not have been there without the cross.

WHAT incredible joy will be ours when we are permitted to look on His blessed face in the eternal realms of glory! "His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars. His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my Beloved and this is my Friend" (Song of Songs 5:15-16).

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