Chapter 53: Suffering rejection

53:2-4 ‘He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 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. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.’

Recently Ireland was shook by the death of one man beside a street doorway less than 100 metres from the parliament. The story grabbed the news wires for a days and there was some soul-searching – even a special conference and announcement to address the problem especially in the weeks running up to Christmas.

There is something of the ‘suffering servant’ identified in this part of the Book of Isaiah in such a situation and person. While every personal story is different there is the truth that, ultimately, people find themselves on the margins of society – for whatever reason – and in this state there is nothing ‘comely’ or attractive in such persons.

One of our deepest fears – perhaps our deepest fear – is the fear of rejection. We crave to be respected, included, looked up to, admired for reasons of looks, intelligence or general social respectability. Yet, this passage of Isaiah – so often taken up in various liturgies, artistic works as well as cited in the New Testament – speaks of the ultimate ‘disaster’ – to live alone and to die alone – as someone outside the tents of social norms and respectability.

One of the great tragedies of human life is that we tend to celebrate, acknowledge and respect people after they have gone more than when they are still alive here.

#JourneyIsaiah