Meditation on the Text of the Week

Never Has Such Sorrow and Joy Met Together

He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Isaiah 53: 3

In the general human mind there is a “vindication motif” which men find instinctively and intuitively appealing. Aspects of the motif occur when someone is being treated unjustly or in a manner unworthy of their true (hidden) merit or status. They suffer. They are rejected. Then there is the revealing of their true glory or worth (often through the hands of a redeemer or saviour figure). Finally there is the aspect of glory or rejoicing at their vindication.

Children's folk tales are replete with this theme. Cinderella is an example, as is the Ugly Duckling and Snow White. Robin Hood, Dumas's Man in the Iron Mask, Hugo's Jean Valjean, and Tolkien's Aragorn are adult examples. The reason this motif makes appealing and popular literature is due to the vindication motif itself having such powerful traction in the human heart. An intrinsic sense of justice leads us to rejoice in the salvation or restoration of one unjustly treated. But more, there is a resonant joy at a person being restored to that which rightly belongs to them. The world is being put to rights.

The “vindication motif”, so powerful and prevalent in literature, is an echo of the Suffering Servant of the Lord. In our Lord the motif comes to its highest and most absolute expression—not in story or myth, but in historical reality. Firstly, there is the descent into ignominy. Never has any being traveled from such heights to such depths. As Paul said, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, for it was His already. But He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2: 6—8)

But the extent of His degradation was also notorious. Born in abject poverty. Subject to the curses of the Covenant all His earthly life. Worse off than the foxes of the earth and the birds of the air—who at least had a place to lay their heads. A Man who clearly bore the disfavour of God. He was despised of both man and God, and we did not esteem Him.

There are few conditions so hideous or shameful that cause people to turn away, not being able to look. Thus the Suffering Servant was forsaken of both men and God.

Yet the suffering was not deserved. He came as the Son of Man amongst us and He lived and died as a wretch without just cause. He suffered because the iniquity “of us all”, says Isaiah, was laid to Him. Just as the scape goat symbolically had the the sins of all Israel placed upon it, and took them out into the desert, so the Son of Man took and bore the degradation of our sin upon Himself and carried them beyond to gate to Golgotha, there to be sent to Hell in our place.

Then God highly exalted Him, and bestowed upon Him a name above every name, that as the Name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess Him as Lord. Here is the ultimate vindication motif. If our hearts and minds thrill at the final restoration and vindication of a Jean Valjean, how much more at the vindication and glory of our Saviour. We know Him no longer “after the flesh”, to use Paul's phrase, but in His glory—and it brings us great joy and delight.

At last the Son of Man is where He deserves to be. The earth and the heavens have been put right.

But there is something further. He did all these things as our Covenant Head—as our representative. We (that is, His people—those who believe in Him) suffered, were crucified, died, and vindicated in Him. The vindication motif belongs not just to our Lord—the One who was first the Suffering Servant, and then the King of glory—but to us. In Him, God has vindicated each one and raised up each one. We have been restored to the glory that Adam had before the Fall. This is how God now regards His precious people.

Calvary is for us a deep vale of tears, yet at the same time, a place of overwhelming, resonating joy.