Series: The Lion and the Lamb
Message: The Love Paradox
Preacher: Tony Hunter
Reflection: Becky De Oliveira
Live Wonder: Zan Long
Live Adventure: Jenniffer Ogden
Live Beyond: Adrian Peterson
Live Purpose: Kyle Smith
Editor: Becky De Oliveira
Refresh: Begin with prayer. Ask for the Holy Spirit to open your heart to new understanding and for God’s character to be revealed.
Read: Isaiah 53 in the English Standard Version (ESV). Note 1–3 insights or questions.
Reflect: “I hope you’re including the issue of unexpectedness in at least one of your reflections,” my husband, micromanager that he is, mentioned in passing as I was getting close to the end of writing this week’s reflections. Lucky for me I still had this one reflection left to write. “The point of this chapter,” my husband continued, helpfully, since it is often a struggle for me to glean the point of anything, “is that the Messiah, when He came in the form of Jesus Christ, was not what the people were expecting. He didn’t fulfil their ideas of what a Messiah should be.”
Right. I get it. I was chased (by a slow and incompetent would-be assailant who promised to cut my throat) into the London Tube at Piccadilly Circus some years ago very early in the morning when the streets were nearly empty. I appealed for help to the men wearing the orange vests who appeared to be in charge. A few minutes later, after I’d descended several escalators down into the belly of the underground and was waiting for my train and hoping the throat-cutter wouldn’t find me, a cheerful huffing and puffing man with a red nose and a pronounced limp approached to inform me he’d come to save me. He didn’t say it quite like that—no British person ever would—but that was the gist. He was my savior. A closer look revealed that he had a prosthetic leg. Up until that point, I hadn’t been aware of what I was expecting in the person who might protect me from a homicidal maniac, but in that moment I knew for sure that this guy was not it.
“What does a human being have the right to expect?” I used to ask my undergraduate classes at Andrews University. Many of the students would reply, “Nothing,” but that’s a disingenuous answer—or at the very least not particularly well thought out— and I could have proven this point easily by giving them all arbitrary Fs and then waiting for the flood of indignant phone calls from Mom and Dad to start pouring in. We are always exceeding, meeting, or failing to meet expectations or having other people, places, or experiences exceed, meet, or fail to meet our expectations. Famous people are often told that they are shorter than members of the public who have not seen them in person expected them to be. Nearly everyone I’ve ever met has expressed disappointment at the Colosseum, the Alamo, Stonehenge—all of which are not as expected. We expect life to be fair, for the fire truck to come when we call, for our water to be clean, for those who govern over us to act justly and sometimes with mercy. These are reasonable expectations. We also, most of us, carry unreasonable ones. We expect other people to read our minds, to make us happy, for the world to configure itself in such a way as to avoid activating any of our “pet peeves.” We even have expectations about who should save us and how.
So Jesus Christ was not what the people were “expecting” in a Messiah. Well, what were they expecting? We’re often not explicit about where our disappointment comes from. We have these half-formed and hazy images of things that we’ve never fully articulated and they loom large. Who knows what the people at Jesus’s time were expecting a Messiah to be like. Just different, right? Bigger or smaller. Shorter or taller. More religious. More real. And in clinging to their expectations they miss the power of what is standing in front of them. Hiccup, miming his father’s disappointed expectations in his son in the movie How to Train Your Dragon, sarcastically says, “Excuse me, barmaid! I’m afraid you brought me the wrong offspring! I ordered an extra-large boy with beefy arms, extra guts, and glory on the side! This here, this is a talking fishbone!”
What do we expect of a Savior now? What evidence has God provided of what a Savior is? Video game creator Hideo Kojima says, “the story does not trick the player, it is the player that tricks himself.” Perhaps we have everything we need to see the Messiah clearly but we trick ourselves, over and over again.
Recalibrate: What expectations do you have for a Messiah and where do these come from?
Respond: Pray for expectations that align with God’s will for your life.
Research: Read one of the commentaries on this chapter.
Remember: “But He was wounded for the wrong things we did. He was crushed for the evil things we did” (Isaiah 53:5, ICB).
Becky De Oliveira is a teacher, writer, editor, and graphic designer. She is working on a PhD in research methods at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.
Go for a walk with your child today. Look at all the faces that you see and know that for every single one of them, Jesus died. “He was wounded for the wrong things we did. He was crushed for the evil things we did.” He did this because His love for us is bigger than anything we have done.
See how well you have memorized the Words to Remember for the week: “But He was wounded for the wrong things we did. He was crushed for the evil things we did” (Isaiah 53:5, ICB). Create a family worship time today, and ask your family what Jesus’ suffering and death means for each of them. Share what you have learned this week about suffering and sacrifice. Pray with your family and ask Jesus to help you all to keep sharing His sacrifice by helping others.
“When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, He will be satisfied. And because of His experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for He will bear all their sins” (Isaiah 53:11, NLT). This week we have read about what Jesus went through for you and me but Verse 11 really gives us the reason—so we can be counted as righteous. We might do bad things, do things that are definitely less than our best, but Jesus makes us right with God because of what He went through on the Cross for you and me. He bore our sins and we are made right with Him. Now I choose to live a life for Him, what about you?
As we have journeyed through Isaiah 53 this week there is something I wonder if you have thought about. Did you realize this text is in the Old Testament? Meaning that this was all written thousands of years before Jesus ever walked the earth! I bring this to your attention today because it is easy to assume the Bible is just a book. But let me tell you today, it isn’t. The Bible is alive! This week I have mentioned multiple times that you should develop the habit of reading the Bible and praying. I haven’t asked you to do this as some sort of religious hoopla. I have asked you to do this because the Bible rewires the way we live. As we have wrestled with the text this week I hope you have been encouraged by the words it has spoken about Jesus. Also I hope that it has encouraged you to make Bible study part of your life. Don’t just stop at reading the Daily Walk. As amazing as it is, this devotional is just our humble effort to help you understand the Bible. There is something special about opening the Bible itself, reading it, and taking it all in—even if you don’t understand everything going on. Are you willing to make Bible study part of your life? I hope so!
Zan Long is GRC director for faith development groups. She lives in Sydney, Australia, and serves at her local church in nearby Kellyville.
Jenniffer Ogden serves as the children and family pastor at the Walla Walla University Church in College Place, Washington.
Adrian Peterson is the associate pastor at Burwood Adventist Community Church in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.
Kyle Smith is the associate pastor of youth and family ministries at New Haven Adventist Church in Overland Park, Kansas.