Rick McNally / September 8, 2025

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Isaiah 53:3 

Such were the characteristics of God’s Servant, the Messiah, as described in the midst of this great segment from the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah 53 is a striking account of the Messiah being laden with the sins of the world, and you cannot read it without picturing the end of Jesus’ life.  Written hundreds of years before that event, it is an uncanny thing.  I want to, however, consider the Messiah’s description here in more detail.

He was despised

This word in Hebrew talks of the “raising of the head, loftily and disdainfully.”   When people looked at the Servant, they looked down toward him; they were better than him, they were greater — he was less.  

We all long to be accepted.  Messiah would not be accepted — he would be rejected by most.  John in his beautiful prologue to his gospel tells us that his own people “did not receive him.”  No, thanks, they said.  He was despised, truly.  

But he was more than them, and he was such a valuable person.  This was unjust.

David uses this word in Psalm 22:6, also about Messiah, as he says, “I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.”

He was rejected

Abandonment.  Left unwanted.  

How many of us can think of a time when we weren’t wanted?  The job we didn’t get.  The girl who said no.  This is a painful thing.  That Messiah, the one who would come to save, would be treated this way is unthinkable.  Tragic.

A Man of Sorrows

Messiah was a man of pain, a man of anguish.  Some of us are not very emotional, some of us are maybe too much so.  I know my daughter feels things strongly.  I have been fairly emotional my whole life, and lately it has nothing but increased.  Messiah would be a bit like this too, a man who was entitled “a man of sorrows.”  Not that he had a run-in with them once in a while, but one who would be assailed with them.  By his own choice.

Life is painful.  It is a common experience of man.  Messiah would not be above that pain but would dig deep into it for us.

• My pain is ever before me.  Psalm 38:17
• I know their sufferings.  Exodus 3:7
• Is there any sorrow like my sorrow?  Lamentations 1:12 
• Whoever increases knowledge increases sorrow.  Ecclesiastes 1:18
• His days are full of sorrow.  Ecc 2:23 

Acquainted with Grief

The idea of grief here is “sickness, disease.”  A person who carries a wound that would not be healed.  The Messiah would be a person who would carry the diseases of others and take them unto himself.

I’m not sure if you have ever read “The Ragman” by Walter Wangerin Jr.  If you have not, I would ask you to take a few minutes soon.  This is a short story that you must encounter soon.  It is a beautiful allegory of Christ that is related very closely to this idea of the grief of Messiah.

Conclusion

You might think that the Messiah, the King, would be above all of this stuff; grief, suffering, abandonment, etc.  You might think that he would be one who would make all this right in his life and avoid these horrible things.  But, he couldn’t.

He came to rescue us from this world, from this grief.  The grief is real.  The pain is real.  It is not just on paper, it is something we can feel, touch, and understand.  Life is hard, and harder still.  Messiah would come and experience all of the hardness of this life and take it — somehow — unto himself.  

Jesus, as pictured in the gospels, is the Messiah.  It is Jesus who cried tears of blood in the garden, was stung by the kiss of betrayal, was rejected by his own people, and scorned by Jerusalem (Give us Barabbas, they shouted).  It was he who died the death of a criminal on a crude Roman cross.

He was the man of sorrows.  Maybe he is someone who could understand us better than anyone else.  He knows my pain — and knows more of it — than I do.

Come, Lord Jesus, comfort me in my sorrows.  Take the pain away.

Grace to you.