Day 13
Scripture: Isaiah 53
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.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Story from the Blue Seats:
…13, 14, 15, 16, they are all still there. My role, lead 16 soldiers as they stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a human wall between the crowd and what they were protesting.
With no personal agenda, no weapons, only the weight of our presence to hold the line, our job was not to fight, only to stand. We were there for the crowd’s safety and no other reason. The screams unrelenting, the bricks thrown at our heads, yet there we stood absorbing both their objects and their pain. Someone was going to be there that night if it wasn’t us. I am so glad it was us.
“He took up our pain and bore our suffering”. Jesus stood in the face of pain and anger that wasn’t his to carry, offering no resistance. As I reflect on that night, in a small way, that was our job. None of the 16 men or women asked to be there that night but it’s exactly what we raised our hands to do. The most loving thing we could have done that night was to stand there silent and absorb, not retaliate. It was the only path toward peace.
13, 14, 15, 16… I counted over and over to make sure my soldiers were all still accounted for, our small piece of the human wall. Of the hundreds and hundreds of people that stood opposed to us that night I’m not sure if I will ever see any of them again. Would I know it even if I did? What I do know is that everyone went home safe that night, and our job was done. We did it again the next night, and then the night after that. We stand ready to do it anytime the phone rings and we are asked.
