On This Day: Treated Shamefully, But Not Ashamed

I gave my back to those who strike,
    and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
    from disgrace and spitting.
But the Lord GOD helps me;
    therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like a flint,
    and I know that I shall not be put to shame.” (Isaiah 50:6-7)

   I don’t know how early in my walk with God I first heard that people who followed Jesus Christ would be hated by the world, but I do recall “getting it” that this was a fact of life. And it made sense to me that this would mean being treated unfairly by worldlings.

   What made it difficult for me to relate to this was that my first exposure to “unjust suffering” was in my home and so I had trouble calling it what it was. It always felt like I was doing something wrong, or that I wasn’t good enough. It took me a long time to realize that it was actually about Jesus Christ in me. He was hated, so I would face hatred whenever anger was on the rampage.

   A couple of days ago I made the connection between Jesus teaching with authority as pictured in Mark 1 and the prophecy about him in Isaiah 50, “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary” (vs 4). I could relate to this as something Jesus has done for me through his word (the Bible). In fact, that very morning, Jesus was speaking through that Scripture to sustain me “with a word” while I was feeling so weary of the grief of losing people.

   The way this chapter spoke to me today was by showing me Jesus’ example of doing his Father’s will as we see it unfold in his suffering and death. I was blessed to feel the wonder of how Jesus did not turn back from his Father’s will. I could see him in Gethsemane agonizing over what he would do when “For our sake he (the Father) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:21). I could see him in his farcical trial enduring all the injustices of false accusations, mockings, and a flogging that tore his back to shreds. That was prophesied in Isaiah 50!

   But what was ministering to me was that God had been leading me to endure unjust suffering much earlier than I had ever admitted. And the way he would “sustain with a word him who is weary” this morning was by showing me that all the disgrace and shame that had been heaped on me by others was not mine! It was theirs!

   My encouragement to anyone reading this is to “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Hebrews 12:3). And this means considering everything Jesus experienced unjustly, sinners expressing their shameful hostility against “the Word” who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and accepting whatever suffering comes our way as we seek to know and do the will of God in everything.

   Jesus is both our example and our encouragement, so let us “not grow weary in doing good” (II Thessalonians 3:13). Instead, “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name” (I Peter 4:16).

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)