To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

 

But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his 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 her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. (Isaiah 53:5-7 NIV)

   Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.”

   So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

   “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

   Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.” (Acts 23:1-4 NIV)

 

   Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death. They bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor.  (Matthew 27:1-2 NIV)

But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.

   Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14:61 NIV)

Jesus was an innocent man… a man without sin… a man who had done no wrong.  Yet He was tried and condemned to the most horrible death his judges could create… tried and condemned while He offered nothing in His own defense… tried and condemned to suffer and die so that you and I might be saved from every evil thought, every evil action, everything that any of us has ever done or will ever do that is evil in the sight of God.  And now, you and I look back at those who condemned Him and shake our heads in wonder that they couldn’t see who He was… amazed that they could reject Him so completely.

Hind-sight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?  Would we have recognized Him then?  Possibly… and possibly not.  But we recognize Him now.  We can see the whole picture, the plan that God set in motion in the Garden of Eden. 

Seven hundred years before Jesus was born, Isaiah saw the whole picture, too.  He described what he saw in this passage.  He wrote this passage and, I’m sure, shared this vision verbally with all he could find.  Yet, few believed.  Few recognized Jesus when He was on earth.  And now, with the whole picture in hand, with the clear vision of the past firmly in our hands, few believe today.  Jesus told Thomas that he was blessed because he had seen and believed, but those who did not see and yet believed were even more blessed. (John 20:24-31 NIV)  In that same light, those who rejected Jesus in person were foolish, but how much more foolish are those who live today and have the whole story and yet reject Him?

Are you a part of His fold?  Or are you still wandering around, lost because you can’t – or won’t – recognize the whole picture?