A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.....

So, I have been thinking about Isaiah 53 this week. Partly because of the Lenten season, and partly because - well I just am. Verses three and four keep playing in my mind over and over.

He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

The whole thing of Jesus suffering, and the necessity of it is spinning in my head. I know people have many reasons and theories for this. It's complex with many nuances. So, without getting into all the theology behind this passage, it is comforting to know that God can truly understand what we humans are feeling because He felt it too in the person of His Son. It's easy for individuals to talk about their problems and for well meaning people to say they understand - although I am pretty cynical at times. If a person hasn't experienced it how can they even begin to say they know what their friend is talking about? Presume to know what they are feeling? Sure, they can sympathize, pray, and listen. Just please don't give people pat answers and "christianese." You can't truly understand until you have been there. And that's what it is about this verse in Isaiah 53 that keeps running in my head. He knows, He gets it, He has experienced it. And is able to enter into our suffering with us. This is just one small aspect of why. And as bad as I think my problems are His were exponentially worse at this point. Not only can He understand my pain, He can understand way beyond what I can even imagine.

Lent

I thought long and hard about what to give up (or what to make a part of my life) for lent this year. Nothing seemed right. It all seemed like it could be grouped under ulterior motives. So, reluctantly I decided since I wasn't doing it for the right reason I would not participate. Until yesterday. The perfect thing occurred to me. So what if it's 5 days late. This is something that is meaningful, and sacrificial and just not an easy thing to give up. Sometimes I think we take the easy way out - e.g. chocolate or sweets when we really want to lose weight anyway, or giving up TV when there's nothing on because of the writer's strike, or doing something that we should be doing anyhow in hopes that after forty days it will be a habit in our lives. That is not the intent of lent. This year it took a lot of soul searching to find the thing that will remind me daily, hourly, maybe more often, of Christ's sacrifice. I don't know if I will succeed but at least the constant reminder of what He did will be before my mind and heart in a very visible way.