14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him—

    his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being

    and his form marred beyond human likeness—

15 so he will sprinkle many nations,

    and kings will shut their mouths because of him.

For what they were not told, they will see,

    and what they have not heard, they will understand.

Chapter 53

Who has believed our message

    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 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.

3 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.

I don’t know that I have ever seen an image of Jesus that portrays him that way – as one with no beauty and nothing in him that would attract him to us. In fact, it is just the opposite. Not only are we most familiar with pictures of Jesus as a light-skinned or lightly tanned Caucasian but even when he is pictured as a Jew it is always a very handsome and attractive man.  There is nothing abhorrent about his features at all.  I asked a number of people this week to send me images of Jesus as an ugly man with no beauty whatsoever and have not received any responses. What if Isaiah is right and our artists are not? What if Jesus in the flesh was actually a man so ugly and his features so distorted that people turned away from him when they first saw him?  If so, then there had to be something about him that overcame that revulsion.

I met a young woman in my first year of teaching who had been born with the most horrid facial deformities I had ever seen. When I first say her I literally looked away and thought about avoiding her.  I didn’t have a chance as she came right up to me and welcomed me to the school. I don’t have time to tell her story but when I met her she was a senior in high school and had undergone 72 surgeries on her face to try and correct the face with which she had been born.  Yet, after only a few weeks I had not only come to a point of dealing with her deformities but had come to know why she was perhaps the most popular student in the school.  It was not beauty or polish. It was something far deeper than that.  It was not that people had grown accustomed to her face or learned to simply deal with it. It was the beauty of her soul that drew people to her.

I was at a conference in Nashville this week and every person on the stage was attractive and pleasing to the eye.  There is not anything wrong with that but I know how much we in the audience value that and how much pressure there is on speakers, pastors, worship leaders to be people whose physical presence does not make us look down in our laps when they are up front. We have defined beauty as pleasing to the eye or out of the ordinary and it would be difficult for us not to be distracted by someone whose “appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness”

I know how many interpret these verses as his appearance after the beatings and the effects of the crucifixion but I have begun to think all of the images of Jesus we have are inaccurate.  I think Isaiah is describing Jesus as he came to us in the flesh.

And I think his beauty was the same as that of my student.  He grew up like a root out of dry ground – not like a tree planted by a stream. He was not expected to be what he became. Everyone who knew him growing up was surprised.

Paul writes about our being jars of clay.  I grew up believing the phrase described our frailty or feet of clay or even our disposition toward the weakness inherent in anything earthen. After all, we are only human and, therefore, jars of clay. However, I think it comes closer to saying we are containers of treasure who in our appearance are unremarkable but have been given a responsibility to carry the greatest power ever conceived. God has chosen the ordinary – even the ugly – to convey the miraculous.

So, I’ve been thinking about the power of the ordinary and the freedom it gives us when we do not have to be the treasure. Too often, the Church has preferred ornate Faberge eggs to clay pots. We want our leaders to be polished, articulate, marketable and successful in ministry. We encourage them to be anything but ordinary or unremarkable. When was the last time we thought about the description “ordinary” as being a compliment?

But, ordinariness or what the Quakers would call “plain” gives us unusual freedoms. We do not have to embroider or measure our words carefully, like politicians. As Paul writes, there is no interest in spin or deception. We are not forever considering how we advance ourselves or constantly keeping in mind the effect of what we say. Instead, we are telling the truth in love. George Fox put it this way, “I was plain, and would have all things done plainly; for I did not seek any outward advantage to myself.”

Being ordinary allows us to trust in the power of the plain Gospel to accomplish its work. We don’t need exquisite techniques, production quality experiences and sophisticated strategies to witness the effects of the Gospel. What we do need is to deflect the attention from ourselves and avoid the temptation to become a part of the treasure itself. We may have already given in by fashionably dressing up the pot. But, the pendulum may be swinging in the other direction. It’s counterintuitive, but one of the fastest growing religious groups in the world is the Amish. By 2050 it is estimated their population will have tripled. The Minimalist Movement and others are telling us that more people are looking for “plainness”. That doesn’t mean average or colorless. It indicates a growing number want the hidden treasure more than the ornate pots we have sold them.

Being ordinary allows us to focus on the world outside ourselves. We have turned personal development into an idol. I was listening to a podcast and the speaker turned everything that had happened in their life into God’s desire to make them whole and healthy. Loving others was a means to personal fulfillment. Recognizing the suffering of the world was a path to personal contentment. The normal anxieties and obstacles in life had become wounds to be healed. Everything was measured by how it contributed to their individual growth. That is not what Paul says about the challenges in the ordinary life. The pressures of the Church were a heavy responsibility for him but not a means of personal development.

Finally, it is exactly the power of the ordinary to conceal the extraordinary that is at the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The Ring was “quite plain” and it was that very feature fooling everyone and allowing it to remain hidden – especially from those who desired to possess it. And, like the Ring, those who want to possess the treasure or use the treasure or even resist being ordinary, are lost. They are destroyed by envy, greed, power, and pride.

But, the good news is the power of the treasure we carry, while a constant surprise to others and ourselves will, over time, change us from the inside out. We remain ordinary but are becoming more and more like the gift itself. We are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory. We are every day in ordinary ways beginning to shine like the treasure we conceal. We are being conformed gradually and imperceptibly to the likeness of Christ by the daily renewing of our minds through the gift that is hidden in our ordinary and unadorned jars of clay.

Let’s continue:

4 Surely he took up our pain

    and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

    stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 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.

6 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.

7 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.

8 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.

9 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.

10 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.

11 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.

12 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.

While Jesus is often referred to as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world this whole passage is a reference not just to lambs but to goats. It is a reference to the Day of Atonement. Jesus is the goat of God and that is a much different image, isn’t it?

In Leviticus 16 we read

From the Israelite community Aaron is to take two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. 6 “Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. 7 Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat. 15 “He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull’s blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. 16 In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the tent of meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness.  20 “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. 21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. 22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.

Christ is both the sacrifice and the goat that carries away our sin. Sin is not merely psychological or imaginary. It is real and it has to be laid on something and carried far away where we cannot get to it. Corrie Ten Boom said “God has put our sins into the deepest ocean and posted a sign saying, “No fishing”.

That is the picture we see in Gethsemane. Christ is being loaded up with the sin of the world. It is not just the anticipated agony of the cross but the separation from the Father and bearing the sin of the world into the wilderness that is his burden that night. It is becoming Sin and bearing the punishment.

I have mentioned before my theory that in the Garden all of the dark forces of Satan were concentrated on the head of one man that night.  All the temptation, the wickedness, the pride and horrors of evil were suspended in the world for those few hours and focused on one place. The rest of the world might well have been a wonderful place for those few hours because every power of sin was concentrated on that single man.

In warfare there is a term we call “concentration of forces.” It is a strategy in which an attacking army puts all of its efforts on a single point in the defenses of the enemy. It is also called attacking a single flank. Instead of spreading their forces across a broad front of attack the general picks a spot and puts everything he has on breaking that one point in the defenses. Once he does that he can use the breach to overwhelm the enemy. That is exactly what I believe Satan did that night in Gethsemane.  This was the final battle. He had created a skirmish in the wilderness years before but remember he said he would return later – and he does. This time it is not merely to tempt but to overwhelm. All the sin of the world was laid on Jesus that night and Satan hoped to attack his flank and overwhelm him with despair. But the goat carries our sin into the wilderness.

I’ll close with this story.

A young man saw his primary school teacher at a wedding.

He went to greet him with all the respect and admiration.

He said to him:

“Do you remember me, Teacher?”

The teacher said: “No, please introduce yourself.”

The student said: “I was your student in the 3rd Grade, I am the one who stole the watch of a child in the classroom. I will remind you but I am sure you remember the story.”

One of the boys in my class had a beautiful watch, so I decided to steal it.

He came to you crying that someone had stolen his watch.

You asked us to stand so as to search our pockets.

 I realized that my action would be exposed in front of the Students and Teachers.

I will be called a thief, a liar and my character will be shattered forever.

You asked us to stand and face the wall and close our eyes completely.

You went searching from pocket to pocket, and when you reached my pocket you pulled the watch out of my pocket, and you continued until you searched the last student.

After you finished you asked us to open our eyes and to sit on our chairs.

I was afraid you will expose me in front of the students.

You showed the watch to the class, and gave it back to the boy, and you never mentioned the name of the one who stole the watch.

You never said a word to me, and you never mentioned the story to anyone.

Throughout my school life, none of the teachers nor the students talked about me stealing the watch. 

 I thought to myself you saved my dignity that day.

The teacher said: “I can’t remember who stole the watch that day, because I searched the pockets of all of you while my eyes were also closed.”

You are forgiven and your sin is forgotten because Christ bore our transgressions and, like him, we will rise to newness of life and the treasure that we carry in jars of clay will be revealed. In the twinkling of an eye we will, along with all of creation, be changed.