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, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. - Isaiah 53:1-6
Jesus looked like someone you wouldn't want to give a second glance to. Like those people who are on the street for whom you avert your gaze because of their behavior, or dress or the way they talk. Like those families in the grocery story whose kids are making a fuss or out of control and you get what you need from the aisle they are blocking and make a hasty retreat. Like those religious people with a decidedly poor grasp of how their faith and life ought to be connected and quote inappropriate verses to support strange choices. Jesus did not look like God. In Isaiah 6 we are granted a glimpse of God on the throne, with his glorious robe and the angels of fire with lots of faces. But the God of Isaiah 53-the God who came down and looks like us doesn't look like that. He looks like us. He doesn't act like us, but he takes our suffering nonetheless. He took up our pain and suffering even though it was clearly not due to his actions, but instead due to our actions. Maybe if God could look like Jesus did, then there's hope that through his sacrifice, we can look a bit more like God.
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