I’m really not sure what had driven my hastened steps to the back end of the dark alley. I had a twisted feeling inside of me that I couldn’t hide not even remotely. My skin rippled with the sense of a fearfully threatening encounter. Even my breath became rhythmically shallow. My whole being seemed overwhelmingly oppressed by a specter of someone or something that had positioned itself well out of my control. There was definitely someone following me. Although it had appeared as the tip of an extending shadow, the shadow had crept over me to the place where I was being engulfed by its darkness. Pushed forward by a great need to survive, I knew someone with an unknown and uncontrollable power had to be attached to the shadow. I am not quite sure what happened at that moment but I found myself unable to move forward, almost like I was stung by an immobilizing neurotoxin. So I turned to face my adversary.
There he stood…but there was nothing about His appearance that even remotely held my attention in a threatening way. I tried hard to find anything about him that would infuse admiration, but I was at a loss. I needed to grab for something that I could use to validate the fear filled feelings that actually carried me into that alley. But what stood before me was so unassuming and so unthreatening that my blushing countenance sunk in despair. I had nothing to begin to contrive a story that would explain my uncontrollable actions. And He, in all of his lack of luster, just stood there looking at me. The only thing that was left to do was to study the man standing before me.
A more focused look revealed that there seemed to be something about Him that was so bruised, so wounded and yet so free. The longer the gaze, there appeared something very broken about Him, and yet in the brokenness there was an undeniable dignity of wholeness. His garments appeared rumpled, unkempt, stained, and soiled by some earlier tragic abuse. There was noticeable physical evidence of violence that his body had borne and was still carrying. But the humble way he held his battered frame carried no cry for “pity me” as with most men in his condition. What happened next would alter me for the rest of my life.
He stepped forward slowly and deliberately stretching out his scarred and gnarled hand in my direction. For some uninhibited reason I moved toward His wounded outstretched hand. Something deep inside me needed His touch. I somehow knew this was His introduction to my grief. I knew this was the connection that He was longing for and that I desperately needed. Why did He want to make a lasting connection with the deepest grieving burdens of my life? Why did He want to fully identify with all that would and could destroy me? Why did he count me worthy to take on my pain? That touch, that longing connection, though momentary on this side of the veil … had my heart on its knees and the eyes of my soul thrown open wide.
I now understood his appearance, because with the addition of my deepest darkest pain, his countenance grew even more unremarkable. He was wounded for my transgressions; the chastisement that would produce my peace was upon Him, He walked away beaten and I was left healed. He clung to and removed my deepest darkest burden, and wrapped that burden within and around His own dignity. Though devastatingly leprous, He held me close. I knew that this was love. Now, I was beginning to understand the essence of real beauty and the lasting consequences of His acquaintance with my deepest need.
The end of our sin is where our life begins with Him.
“But God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom. 5:8
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” I John3:16
Let Him touch us, and we will live.
And as she slept, I laid my hands upon her pain and wept knowing He feels her pain deeper than I ever will. And He cares way beyond what I can imagine. He lets me care with Him. Praise His Name!
Isaiah 53 HLFA,
Jeff