The Paradox Parexcellence
It is the holy house of Nazareth. Jesus the Divine Carpenter, is now in prayer and meditation. His meditation centred on the prophets. In their fiery laments. He easily recognizes His destiny. The promises are insistent. They are repeated, reiterated. They are always confirmed too. Precise, minute with irrefutable testimony, they foretell His very story. Even apart from the prophecies. He knew what awaits Him, even to the last and the least. His life on earth, as the son of man, is set down, day by day, with the exactness of an eye-witness.
He knew that His (and our) Father had promised Moses a new prophet: “I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto you. I will put my words in his mouth. And He shall speak to them all that I shall command Him. God will make a new covenant with His people. It is “not according to the covenant I made with their Fathers… I will put “my law” into their inner soul and write it in their hearts… I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. It was a covenant inscribed upon their souls and not upon stones. It is a covenant of forgiveness and not of punishment!”
The Messiah will have a precursor as well. He will announce the One to come in person. Behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me”. “Then, midway through the festival, Jesus went up to the Temple and began to teach. The people were surprised when they heard him. How does he know so much when he hasn’t been trained?” they asked. So Jesus told them, My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me. Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely own” (Jn. 7:14-17).
And He shall be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel. He will not magnify and or show Himself off. He will not come to proud triumph. “Rejoice greatly, O! daughter of Zion, shout, O! daughter of Jerusalem. Behold your King comes unto you. He is just and having salvation in hand, lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a colt, the young one of an ass”. He will bring justice and will lift up the unhappy”. “The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me; for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the broken-hearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favour has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. To all who mourn he will give a crown of beauty for ashes”( Is. 61:1-3). “The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For the terrible One is brought to naught (nothing) and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off”. He will open the eyes of the blind and make the deaf hear, the lame walk properly and the dumb speak and sing. I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness… to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness from the prison house. Paradoxically enough, He will be vilified and tortured by the very people He graciously came to save. “He has neither form nor comeliness. Scarcely has He any beauty. Depressed and rejected, He is a man of sorrows. He is a synonym for grief. He was despised and we did not esteem Him at all.
It is most certain that it is our grief that He bore and our sorrows that He carried. The truth still remains that He was wounded for our transgressions. He was tortured for our heinous sins. With His stripes we are healed. We were all like sheep gone astray. Everyone, without any exception, turned to his own way. And the Lord of hosts has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
