rejected
by Dave McCasland
Isaiah 53:3-7 (New Living Translation)
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own,
Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
7 He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
I was waiting for a city bus at a crowded stop when a teenager girl began yelling obscenities. Shouting and screaming, she moved back into the waiting area, buried her head in her hands, and began to sob. "I'm sorry," she said to the people around her, and continued to cry.
Then I saw the situation clearly. Some girls boarding the bus after school had snubbed her and let her know she wasn't welcome among them. I could almost hear their unspoken words: "Don't even think about getting on even glance at her as she vented her frustration.
Rejection always hurts, and it may be one of the core of our being when others exclude and shun us because of who we are. Most of us will go to great lengths to avoid it.
When we think of the pain of rejection, it dramatically increases our gratitude for what Jesus endured. Read Isaiah's vivid prediction of our Saviour's experience as He did the will of His Father and died for our sin: "He was despised and rejected...it was our sorrows that weighed Him down....He was beaten so we could be whole" (Isaiah 53:3-5)
Perhaps the most difficult thing to comprehend is that on the cross Jesus felt abandoned even by His Father:"My God,My God, why have You abandoned Me?" (Matt. 27:46). Jesus came willingly to our world so that we could know the joyful acceptance of becoming a child of God.
That day at the bus stop reminded me of the rejection Jesus went through. He was forsaken so that I could find forgiveness of sin through faith in Him.
