Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. Isa. 53:1-4 (NIV)
Dear Lord Jesus, your manger was a veritable garden of grace, for there the Father planted you as the “tender shoot”—the “root out of dry ground,” of Isaiah’s vision. Hallelujah, you are root of life that has broken through the parched ground of our fallen world and sinful hearts.
We bow in awe, at the sacrifice and humility of your incarnation. You created beauty, yet you became the one with “no beauty,” for us. You took the vileness and ugliness of our sin, that we might become pure and beautiful by you. O holy merciful mystery—though you have always enjoyed the delight of the Godhead, you became the despised one—rejected for us that we might find acceptance in you. What wondrous love is this, indeed?
You—the fountain of pleasures, whose laughter fills heaven and whose joy is our strength; you became the man of suffering and sorrows for us. And though you didn’t remain a “tender shoot,” you have retained all tenderness. In taking up your cross, you took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows; you bore our guilt and exhausted our judgment, once and for all. What a wonderful, merciful, tender Savior you are.
O to esteem and love you, as you deserve to be adored and worshipped, Lord Jesus. May your tenderness grow exponentially in our hearts—for your glory and the benefit of others. So very Amen we pray, in your beautiful and grace-full name.
