Isaiah 52:14; 53:2–3

Midweek 2

Theme: Appearances can be deceiving

¹⁴Just as many were astonished at you, My people, So His aappearance was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men.

2 For He grew up before Him like a atender 1shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has bno stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should 2be attracted to Him.

3 He was adespised and forsaken of men, A man of 1sorrows, and bacquainted with 2grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was cdespised, and we did not desteem Him.

Victor Hugo in his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame describes the person who is at the center of the story. He tells of that “tetrahedral nose, that horse-shoe mouth, of that small left eye obscured by a red and bristling brow, while the right disappeared entirely under a monstrous wart, of those uneven teeth, with breeches here and there like the creneled walls of a fortress, of that horny lip over which one of the teeth projected like an elephant’s tusk, of the cloven chin, nor, above all, of the expression overlying the whole—an indefinable mixture of malice, bewilderment, and sadness….Let us say,” says Hugo, that “his whole person was a grimace. An enormous head covered with red bristles; between the shoulders a great hump balanced by one in front; a system of thighs and legs so curiously misplaced that they only touched at the knees, and, viewed form the front, appeared like two sickles joined at the handles; huge splay feet, monstrous hands…” His name was Quasimodo, which itself means, mal-formed, or disfigured.

Let’s face it: all of us have seen people whom we have regarded as ugly. Some people just repulse us. Not only are we repulsed by their physical appearance, but some people repulse us by their personality or character.

The problem is we can often tell a lot about ourselves by what repulses us. Most often, those characteristics which repulse us about others are characteristics we find in ourselves. The hardest people to get along with are often the people who are most like us. The faults we most dislike about ourselves are generally the ones that we dislike in others as well.

When we look into a mirror, we must admit that we all have our faults. Not just a literal mirror, but if we were to look into a personality mirror, we would also find numerous faults. And if we look into the spiritual mirror, the law of God, we find that we are indeed ugly. By nature, each of us, without Christ, is ugly to God. God’s mirror, the Law, shows us just how deformed we are. Were it not for Christ, God would abhor us and banish us from his sight forever.

Appearances can be deceiving. We might think that if anyone should be handsome and perfect in appearance, it would be Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the man who was God incarnate, perfect in every way.

But what does out text say about him? It says:

Just as many were appalled at you, So His appearance was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men. He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

We may imagine him as being impressive, dignified and majestic. Certainly he is portrayed as such in some movies. But the New Testament gives us no physical description of him. We don’t know how tall he was, or what color hair he had. Vain human beings who judge by physical appearances may have dismissed him as unexceptional.

No matter what his appearance was, we do know that many times the prophecy in our text came true. He was despised and forsaken of men. People turned away from him, closed their eyes to him, and refused to listen to him. The same is still true today.

Isaiah’s description becomes literally true of his physical appearance during Holy Week when he was beaten, scourged and crucified. That was truly an abhorrent sight. His hands and feet were pierced by nails, his side had a jagged gash from a sword, and a crown of thorns encircled his head. Who would want to gaze on such a sight? Many turned away in horror at such a spectacle.

Yet when we think of why he was so ugly, our view of him changes. The ugliness of our sins was placed upon him. Even his physical disfigurement, his wounds, his scars were all inflicted by our brutal acts. He was marred because he took upon himself our sin. Jesus suffered the scorn that we may feel from others and that we sometimes may feel for others. But most of all, Christ suffered the abhorrence of his Father. On account of our sin he was forsaken and abandoned by his Father as he hung there on that ugly cross. He was so ugly covered in our sin that his own Father turned his eyes away from him. It was the ugliness of the sin of all humanity—that sin which he bore in our place and thus took away from us.

It is for that reason that we sing, “Beautiful Savior.” Because his ugly wounds have earned eternal life for us. The Servant who was despised and rejected will receive all who come to him in repentance and faith. “Whoever comes to me I will in no way cast out,” he says. No one is too ugly for him to love.

God sees through outward appearances. When God looks at you, a baptized child of God, he sees you robed in Christ’s righteousness. Adorned in the splendor of Christ’s holiness. So shall we stand forever before him in grace.

Thus we should regard each other as well. What about the person who is unattractive to us? What about the person we regard as offensive to us? What about the person whose personality conflicts with ours? That person we want to turn away from, whom we don’t like, or don’t accept has been redeemed by Christ. Don’t be fooled by appearances. He too is covered with the holiness of Christ. God sees that person as righteous and beautiful. God calls that person his child. He too is the redeemed of God.

Therefore, with Isaiah, let us praise the Lord:

I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Amen.

Study:

Quasimodo: …that tetrahedral nose, that horse-shoe mouth, of that small left eye obscured by a red and bristling brow, while the right disappeared entirely under a monstrous wart, of those uneven teeth, with breeches here and there like the creneled walls of a fortress, of that horny lip over which one of the teeth projected like an elephant’s tus, of the cloven chin, nor, above all, of the expression overlying the whole—an indefinable mixture of malice, bewilderment, and sadness….Let us say, his whole person was a grimace. An enormous head covered with red bristles; between the shoulders a great hump balanced by one in front; a system of thighs and legs so curiously misplaced that they only touched at the knees, and, viewed form the front, appeared like two sickles joined at the handles; huge splay feet, monstrous hands…