By Pastor Steve Nickodemus

Rejected and Alone

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking this SoundCloud link

“For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”
Isaiah 53:2 English Standard Version

I found this little humble flower growing up in the middle of our gravel driveway, alone and vulnerable.  That is how Isaiah describes our Lord Jesus “…. like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground…”  This is Jesus at the cross, “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”.  This is our Lord as He travels the lonesome road to Calvary, alone in His suffering.  The royal Son of God gives away His majestic form and takes on our iniquity and sin for us.

For “he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities”.  He suffered wounds that we might be healed!  And He turns His face toward heaven upon the cross and cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)  Alone and cut off not only from His friends and family but from God himself, the Son of God, bloody and pierced dies alone on the cross.

He humbled himself and took on human flesh that he might bear our sins and we might be raised up to new life.  He died that we might live.  He was forsaken so that we might never be alone.  We kneel before him at the cross and are overwhelmed by His great love for us.  We rejoice that we have a Savior that understands us in our aloneness and suffering and temptations.

Lord Jesus, thank you for suffering all for me, even death on a cross, that I might be free from sin and live forever with you.  Thank you, man of sorrows!  Amen.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church Colorado Springs, Colorado