Man of Sorrows

“Sent of heaven, God's own Son

To purchase and redeem

And reconcile the very ones

Who nailed Him to that tree “

(Man of Sorrows, Hillsong)

I can’t even wrap my mind around these lyrics. That the Son of God came to die for sinners, but not only die to save them, also be put to death by the very people he was there to save. Can you even imagine? Don’t just read those words, truly try to imagine it.

Imagine you are from a high class family and in humility have decided to serve someone who society deems as poor. Imagine that they are sitting at the dinner table while you wait on them. Imagine if every time you went and kneeled to serve them, they spat in your face. That they criticized every action you did. I really don’t have a good example because I can’t think of anyone who served the way Jesus did. But just imagine. As the one doing the serving and constantly encountering an ungrateful heart, I would grow so weary and angry. I could see myself in this situation just getting fed up and eventually yelling at the person, maybe even kicking them out of my home and telling them they need to be more grateful.

This idea of loving those who persecute us is so hard to grasp because when I examine my own heart, I know that in my selfishness I could never want what’s best for people who hurt me. I don’t have the capacity to love like that. But Jesus does. Jesus came down from the highest of highs, leaving his throne, to dine with sinners. He left all of that while knowing the people he served wouldn’t embrace Him as the King he was. Yet he served unceasingly until his final breaths. He chose to suffer for people who literally spat in His face as He served them.

But this is where my example and the actual thing differ tremendously. Instead of getting frustrated and banishing these people from His presence, Jesus chooses to give them more. He gives them His life! He gives them EVERYTHING.  

What if this is what we began to strive for in our relationships with people in our lives: To love and serve and suffer for people without any limits. To not get angry when people don’t give us the praise “we deserve” but simply resolved to love them because he loved them first.

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!”

-Philippians 2:1-8

This is such a difficult challenge, if you were to try to do it alone. But what if we asked, Jesus, the very man who lived it out in His life here to do the same through us!

Let this be our prayer:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” –Galatians 2:20