“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3). For someone Who had been proclaimed the Messiah, the Chosen One, the Savior of the World, it must have been hard for those who truly had believed in Christ and His mission to watch what happened to Him in His final hours. Publicly arrested and dragged through the streets, beaten and spit upon by the Jewish ruling council, and by the Jewish king, and by the Roman ruler, with soldiers mocking him cruelly, rejected by the screaming mob in favor of a convicted murderer when given the chance for clemency, forced to drag His own cross through the streets to His own execution in front of all those who had believed in Him and had truly thought that He had come to cast down the oppressors and liberate the captives and lead them into a golden age, and finally, to be lifted up along with two other criminals as He bled to death as the ultimate sign of His weakness and failure to deliver on what so many had hoped for. I imagine such profound humiliation falling upon one Whom they had so admired and even worshipped would have caused many to look away in disgust and disbelief and hide their faces from Him and pretend, like Peter had, that they did not know Him. Christ was willing to be despised and rejected, to become an embarrassment and a laughingstock, a joke and a byword, not only because it was the only way to drain the bitter cup to the dregs, but also so that He may set an example for us to follow. Doing what is right when everyone else is doing wrong can be frightening and embarrassing. Repenting from our sins and returning to the fold covered in mud and blood and enduring the looks of pity and judgement and secondhand embarrassment from the ninety and nine who were not lost can be humiliating. Saying we are going to do the right thing, fully intending to do the right thing, and then failing nonetheless can feel shameful. But we can do these things because before we became men and women of sorrows, acquainted with grief, despised and rejected, so that others hide their faces from us, Jesus Christ did it first. He endured more shame and humiliation with more poise and grace and quiet dignity than we will ever hope to match. And we do this not only because it is the only way forward through all of the ugliness and embarrassment to reach Jesus on the other side, but more importantly, it is a chance in our own small way to set an example for others who may have to some day eat their helping of humble pie as well. If we are willing to hold our lives up for all to see as the trainwreck that they are, not for some perverse masochistic narcissistic bid for attention, but rather as a signal that we care more about God's opinion of us than anyone else's, then when others see first the absolute mess that our lives have become and that we have bravely stared down the barrel of cold, hard reality and are openly throwing ourselves on the mercy of anyone and everyone who is willing to pitch in and help us pick up the pieces, and then watch us actually build something that is stronger and more beautiful out of the wreckage, then maybe that will encourage them to take a good look at their own lives and cast aside the veneer of put-togetherness and respectability that is preventing them from actually dealing with the problems and making things better. No one enjoys public humiliation but if we are to truly follow our Savior Jesus Christ, then we have to be willing to strip ourselves of all pride and vanity and expose ourselves to the judgement and ridicule of the world. But if we will have the courage to do so, then while all of them are looking down from the towers of their great and spacious building pointing fingers and mocking us, we will be tasting the sweet fruit of forgiveness and healing and the pure love of Christ. And then, all of those who hid their faces from us when we were disgusting and at our lowest will have to hide their faces once more as we blaze forth with blinding brilliance as we are exalted on high.
