I think it’s pretty safe to say that human beings have a difficulty of understanding spiritual things.

We are physical beings living in a physical dimension, with physical senses. Most of our daily choices are made following a physical response. Our belly is empty, and we eat. Our eyes are heavy, and we sleep. Our skin is shivering, and we ask our spouse to not sneak their hand in the shower and turn the handle to COLD.

Yet somewhere inside of our physical beings is a spiritual existence… one that is not mortal, but eternal. Our bodies pass away. Our spirits do not.

We are at somewhat of a disadvantage because it seems as though our spiritual senses are a lot less obvious than our physical ones, and we miss out on opportunities and moments to live and grow in this spiritual dimension. Because we’re not living in as much of a spiritual ‘awareness’, we’re prone to misperceive spiritual things, and end up with some distorted views of God and His nature.

No scripture captures this thought like Isaiah 53 does (in the Message version);

“Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this? The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.”

This is a prophetic description, and a realistic one, of how the world – of how WE – would have the ability to misunderstand Jesus. Scrawny. Looked down. Passed over. Unattractive. Scum.

More proof of this lies later in the passage, where it reads: ‘WE THOUGHT he brought it on himself…’  How true of us is this statement – that we would form a negative opinion about Jesus based on a lack of information, and even a negative experience of our own or someone we know.

I’ve heard the modern version of Isaiah 53 many times. God is remote. Distant. A cosmic kill-joy. Cruel (bad things happen to good people). Pluralistic and approachable in a hundred different ways. Unworthy of my attention or my devotion. Doesn’t this negative tone sound just like the prophecy in Isaiah 53?

There is hope. Of course, we would have to be willing to soften our stance and let go of the negative distortions we have towards God. But, if we’re open enough to do this, then something changes. We experience His love. We are captured by His grace. We realize how wrong we really were in the beginning, and that He is much more real and loving then we ever thought. We’re ready to go to that next place of surrender.

I hope He is OK with that. I hope that I could change. I hope that He is patient enough with me, as I work through my own distortions of Him, and walk in a new level of awareness to His amazing grace and magnificent love for me.

I hope that you hope so too.

JJ