Day 37: Thursday, April 11, 2019
1 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.
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.
This is a paradox. And it must always be one. It can never be taken for granted and never assumed. It is always twisted inside out, mixed up and shocking in some way or another. For punishment to be made peace cannot be understood. A stranger bearing my suffering cannot truly be known. To be healed by His wounds can only ever be a thing of faith. It breaks all reason and defies all logic.
Grace is a paradox. This is the gospel. Prepare us, O Lord.