I was sitting in the stairwell crying. I had just prayed over a teenager in intensive care in Houston who had been in a car wreck. He was in a coma.
I have never seen a person as beaten up as he was. His face was so swollen that he didn’t even look human. I had to sit alone for a few minutes and weep before returning to the waiting room to visit with his parents. I didn’t want to fall apart in their presence.
He lived, I am happy to report. It is amazing how the human body can mend after being abused. When I think about how pitiful he looked I am reminded of a verse in the Bible about Jesus. Written about 700 years before it happened it foretold His beating.
Isaiah 52:14: As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: Jesus was beaten beyond recognition.
The movie “The Passion of the Christ” depicts the best (or worse) picture of our beaten Lord I have seen. Yet His beating was much worse. He was hated so much. He never sinned yet He became sin for our sakes.
1 Peter 3:18: For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.
Even when He created the first man He knew He would die on a cross.
Revelation 13:8: the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus knew man could never save himself by obeying the law.
The more we understand God’s law the more we realize we can never reach the high bar it demands. How frustrating. Every time we consider an evil thought or say a bad word or do a wrong action we fail to obey the law.
Jesus took the beating we deserved so our sins can be transferred from us to Him when we hear, believe, repent and pray.
Colossians 2:14: Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; Today His face is no longer marred. However the wounds from the nails in His wrists and feet remain as an ugly reminder of how ugly sin is.
He was beaten beyond recognition. Now in Christ your life can be changed from something ugly to something beautiful. In Jesus we become a new person.
2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Have you asked Him to make you a new person?
