THE SUFFERING SERVANT

Seven hundred years before Jesus Christ came into the world to 'give Himself a ransom for many', the prophet Isaiah foresaw our Savior ... 

For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground.

He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:2-6

Throughout history, men have tried to capture the likeness of Christ in paintings, sculptures, movies, etc. These are futile interpretations that fail to represent Him as He truly is. If taken in, they can cause us to miss His divine countenance altogether. I suggest that the above passage helps us to truly 'see' Him. There is both love and sorrow, anguish and pain on the face of the Messiah. 

Spurgeon - We have read of grief, we have sympathized with grief, and we have sometimes felt grief: but the Lord felt it more intensely than other men in His innermost soul; He, beyond us all, was conversant with its dark depths. 

We can find comfort in the fact that Jesus bore mankind's sorrows. It assures that He intimately understands our pain and the sin that seeks to entangle us. The Son of God is thus qualified to be our Advocate before the Father. 

According to Prophesy, all suffering will soon come to an end for those who've accepted Christ as Savior. And no matter how deep the scars, they will vanish in His presence.