Facing Life’s Sorrows 2

The hymn ‘Man of Sorrows’ written by the uneducated Philip Bliss is perhaps one of the most profound renditions of Isaiah 53 and its link to the passion not Jesus Christ.

Man of sorrows what a name

for the Son of God, who came

ruined sinners to reclaim:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

in my place condemned he stood,

sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Guilty, helpless, lost were we;

blameless Lamb of God was he,

sacrificed to set us free:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

He was lifted up to die;

"It is finished" was his cry;

now in heaven exalted high:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

When he comes, our glorious King,

all his ransomed home to bring,

then anew this song we'll sing:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour! 

In Matthew 8:14-17; we find Jesus healing Peter’s mother in law and the passage concludes with the words, “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Jesus, and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took on our infirmities and carried out diseases.” 

It is one thing to suffer but to take suffering of another as our own requires a personal integrity and grit that is at another level. The words often used to describe such a one is a suffering servant. Frederick Beuchner puts the Suffering Servant’s action firmly in the context of love and says, “When someone we love suffers, we suffer with that person, and we would not have it otherwise, because the suffering and the love are one, just as it is with God’s love for us.

PRAYER: Gracious Lord, it doesn’t seem right that anyone could despise or forsake you... hide their face from you. Yet, when we consider where to go with our deepest pain and suffering, we are comforted that your suffering gives us courage in our weakest moments. What you bore on our behalf is hard to take in. Thank you for your great empathy that reassures us we have an intercessor and advocate who understands, firsthand, the people of Ukraine going through. Our hearts to ache for them. Be with them we pray. Amen.