Marred Visage

It seems increasingly so, that we as the human race are becoming more shallow, less independent, more fickle, less loyal. The more we have, comforts we are able to enjoy, emphasis we put on youth with it's strength and beauty, and wealth, and knowledge we acquire, the more insecure, weak and dissatisfied we become as individuals and as a whole.
We don't measure up.
To what?
The things that have stolen our focus are false, fleeting and fail. None of it is dependable and all of it uses up the very limited number of days that total up to be life, wasted. Life's visage marred.
Easter approaches and my thoughts are on chocolate bunnies and colored eggs, after all as we "hop into spring" these are the pictures painted by the advertisers, retailers and various media for our minds and thoughts to absorb. Unless there is some background with someone to tell you that there is another explanation for the holiday know as Easter, someone to tell that it is not about bunnies but a lamb, a sacrificial lamb, and a cross and a miracle and a victory, then all there will be is chocolate bunnies and colored eggs, and woven baskets of sugared marshmallow chicks and jelly beans. Easter's visage is marred.
For me, Easter was always about something special, someone very special. Easter meant a service at church on Good Friday evening to ponder the moments in history that changed the future of the world of anyone who chose to let the story turn their world right side up. While there were chocolates and egg hunts, there were also new Easter dresses and new white Easter shoes to attend Easter Sunday church service for a celebration of the life, death and resurrection of the Man Jesus, Son of God, who's whole life purpose was a plan to redeem back to God those who were hopelessly unpresentable in and of themselves. Ordinary people who's visage was marred.
Just in the last week or two I have read the words of the prophet Isaiah about that Man Jesus, written some 700 years before Jesus was even born. The 53rd chapter lists details about the Man who was yet to be born, who would fulfill the words written about Him 700 years earlier and who would "sprinkle (startle) many nations" and who's truth would cause even the most powerful people on the planet, kings, to "shut their mouths at Him" and "consider" Him. This is Easter.
The Man, God with flesh and in Spirit. The description of what He chose, did not have to, voluntarily did as a human which culminated in why he became a Man in the first place; His sacrifice, His offering to God the Father, for the blotting out of the sins of every body who would accept His offer, This is Easter.
Life is in the blood, no blood no life. His blood covers sins, washing them away exposing only life, clean and unspoiled as God created it and intended it be for us all.
The horror of the barbaric physical treatment that caused unimaginable suffering and spiritual anguish, the marred visage, the unthinkable facts of those last hours of His life are brought to attention at Easter.
We have communion with juice and crackers meant to symbolize our remembrance of what He did, and why and for whom, to reason in our own hearts and souls and minds the cost. Though the offer to us is free and available to everyone just the same, it surely was not cheap, it surely was of great cost, impossible to ever be able to pay ourselves. But there was 33 years of life lived here among "us" as a human being, what of the rest of His time living and understanding life as we do?
Isaiah says he was quite ordinary looking, not the King Messiah that the Jewish people were expecting to come and turn their world right side up, just a man so ordinary that He wouldn't even be noticed, wouldn't stand out in a crowd, wouldn't be paid any attention to. He Knows how it is not to be cover of a magazine beautiful, to be last picked for the team. He was hated and avoided for doing the right thing as everyone He encountered in life was so full of themselves, He knows what it's like to be alone, unaccepted, unwelcome and unloved. He was teased, taunted, mocked, dismissed as crazy, and rubbed people the wrong way for doing the right thing so badly that they sought to and finally did, kill Him. They foolishly thought His death would end His influence, they were obviously mistaken. They refused His message of freedom, hope and life, but could not stop it from reaching the ears and hearts of us, 2000 years into the future.
I love Him.
His life is one that was lived in such a way that I trust He fully knows and understands mine. His death was so only my body would die while my soul, the real me, lives. His resurrection is the first of the many He made intercession for and who will join Him forever.
I love Him.
His marred visage, as well as the picture in my mind, though I know what I picture falls far short of the awesome reality of the description in Revelation 19, of Him on a white horse, beautiful not plain; powerful and authoritative, not subjected; clothed in a robe fit for only The King of Kings, not naked and humiliated.
I love Him, because He demonstrated His love for me, first.
This is Easter.

Isaiah 53

Who, if any could live their life rejected
by the very ones for whom life was invested?

Who could withstand such objection and disdain
that passersby would choose to go the other way?

Who could endure the hurt of constant ridicule,
taunting and contempt for good and truth?

Who's heart could be broken, yet selflessly live
still concerned for others and choose to forgive?

What man could bear humiliation before his mother,
the person he'd prefer to honor over any other?

Despised, rejected, Man of sorrows acquainted with grief,
He was not desired for any appearance of beauty

stricken, smitten, afflicted, oppressed, chastised,
wounded and bruised, undeserving of the stripes.

He exchanged everything He had, His good and innocence,
for what was yours and mine, condemnation and violence.

Interceding for our transgressions, purchasing our peace,
taking what was ours upon Himself, so we'd be healed.

In this labor of His soul He's pleased and satisfied
knowing the exchange He made would make us justified.

Who is He that overcomes man's evil with God's good?
Jesus, Servant of God, saves the many no other could.

P.J.