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.
Isaiah 53:3 (NIV)
The Man People Hid From
The barbershop at ten on a Saturday morning has four men waiting and a television nobody’s watching. One of them talks. He says the shop across town closed and good riddance to it, he says there’s weather coming Thursday, he asks the man next to him whether he grew up around here. He gets three words back. Everybody else has a phone to look at until a name gets called.
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Isaiah says it with a we inside it. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. The people saying the sentence have put themselves into it, on the side of the ones who looked past him, with no place left to stand outside the sentence and point back into it.
Pain was a household thing for him. You know a street you’ve walked for years without having to think about it, and you know a voice on the phone before the name comes. He was familiar with pain the way you’re familiar with those, from the inside and over a long time.
Hiding a face is mostly polite work. People are glad to see you at the door and quick to have somewhere they need to be. The invitations get fewer, the messages get shorter and kinder at the same time, and you stop bringing the hard thing up so the conversation can stay easy for everybody.
Isaiah puts the servant in that position on purpose. He was despised, which takes a crowd, and he was held in low esteem, which takes a verdict. Holy Week opens on a despised man. So when you bring him what’s wrong with you, you’re bringing it to a man people made a point of not looking at. He knows what it costs to be the one others are relieved to get away from, and he isn’t hearing about it from you for the first time.
The barber calls a name and one of the quiet ones gets up, and the man who’s been talking starts in on the weather again, and the two still waiting can answer him or not.
A Prayer to Remember
The man I keep meaning to call is having a hard time of it, Lord, and I’ve let it go on because I don’t know what to say. Look after him today. Send him an afternoon where nobody flinches, and let his phone ring for a reason that has nothing to do with it.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
