Isaiah 53:3-4
“He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face.
He was despised and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.”
I have read this scripture nearly all of my adult life and never connected with it until now. Since we had lost our youngest daughter suddenly, it shook our faith and caused us to have to rebuild what we believe from the ground up, a new foundation, and who we understand God to be, His character, and what is real and what is truth. First of all, God is not taken by surprise or angry and He can handle your feelings, your thoughts, and your wrestling. Likewise, I had never connected with Job’s story of losing everything, Jacob’s account of wrestling with God or David’s anguish.
Isaiah speaks and prophesies of Jesus, the Messiah, to One to come, and describes Him as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” This is two fold. First, He was rejected by the very people He loves and came to save. They spat on Him, ripped out His beard, yelled obscenities at him, called him a blasphemer and crucified Him. He also experienced the death of a beloved friend, Lazarus, and He wept (John 11:32). He wept and was grieved in the Garden just prior to His betrayal (Matthew 26:38). Second, and my main point, He was acquainted with grief because “our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.” Before we even existed, He knew the things we would go through and endure, the children we would lose, the trauma that changes you. He bore that and carried that. I woke up one morning and began my daily devotion, opened my Bible and began to read this section in Isaiah. It hit me so hard and I realized that what I am carrying – The loss, the devastation, the brokenheartedness, the anger, the feeling as a failure, the overall burden that words cannot describe – Jesus carried that Himself too. The same burden and sorrow I am carrying, He took on Himself. My burden. He carried that in His heart and on His shoulders so that I could have peace. A peace that surpasses all earthly understanding.
There is a level of peace that will only come when we are reunited in Heaven with Jesus and the ones we have lost. I will never be at full peace, as long as I am on this Earth, without my daughter, without our family whole, celebrating her birthdays without her, with the way we lost her and the fact that I couldn’t save her despite doing everything possible. But there is a level of peace He offers now, so that we can be a light in the world and strength to others who are hurting, broken, and going through tragedy. If you are still on this Earth, God has you here for a reason. He has not abandoned you. Jesus said He will never leave you nor forsake you. Bring everything you have and everything you are and lay it at Jesus’ feet. Give Him your thoughts, your feelings, your anger, your insecurities, your trauma, and wrestle with Him. He likes it when we wrestle with Him, when we aren’t fake with Him and when we lay it all out. Wrestle and work it out.
God’s Word is deeper than the oceans, and the more we explore the more we find. There are layers upon layers and depth upon depth. We could read scripture our whole lives, then the next time you read it, a whole new layer is revealed.
– Erik
