Loving Like God

“…and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.” Isaiah 52:15

What was it that had not been told? What was it that they had never seen? What was it they had not heard? What was it that they were to understand? For that matter, do we understand it yet?

Before Jesus died – before He had the skin torn off His back – before he had His beard ripped out, and a crown of thorns planted into His skull, He had said:

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
John 15:13

Until the day that Jesus died, no one had ever seen a love greater than that! What kings got to see on the day He died was a love that was good for enemies:

“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” Romans 5:10 NIV

The King of all kings was about to found a kingdom on a love that was good for enemies. No one had ever seen, heard or understood anything like that before, and that is what we need to understand!

• By Jay Ferris, originally posted March, 2011

The day He died, Jesus had the best view on the hill.

Among other things He saw that day, He saw His mother standing beside John, “the disciple He loved.” He gave them to each other that day – John to her as a son, and her to John as a mother.

But the beholding I would like to share about here is our own beholding; what we need to see in connection with the day He died.

Pilate presented Jesus to the crowd and said, “Behold the man.” Jesus was wearing a crown that day.

Many years before that day another king wrote: “Behold …” – Well, perhaps you might want to read it for yourself in Song of Songs 3:11.

While you are there, please note the context beginning with verse 7.

And here are a couple of clues that might help with your own beholding: Jesus said that these Scriptures were all about Him, and, another way of understanding the “Who” in this passage is to remember that king Solomon was also the Son of David.

Jesus began to put the solitary in families even before He died.

-By Jay Ferris, originally published March, 2011