Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, November 20, 2020
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Every culture has its own idea of what power looks like. Its own ideals for beauty. Its own preconceived notions of what someone promised by God to bring justice and peace to the world should be like. Two thousand years ago, Jesus was none of these things. And neither was the person Isaiah was writing about (which may or may not have been Jesus). Whoever he was, he had ‘no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.’ Yet he was exactly the one God had chosen.
God choses us—me and you—to bring justice and peace into the world. Not on the grand scale that Jesus did, perhaps, but ultimately that is our call. I don’t know about you, but I hardly feel equipped. I’m certainly nothing anyone would call ‘majestic,’ nor is there anything about me that others might say, ‘Wow! That’s someone God would choose!’ Doesn’t matter. Not one bit. God accomplished all things in Jesus through his rejection and death. Certainly God can accomplish and awful lot through us if we just let God equip us as God sees fit, and then do our best to follow God’s call. No matter how others see us.
Am I held back from serving God by feelings of inferiority due to cultural expectations?
An
Exceptional
People
Blog Posts
SIGN UP NOW