God spoke Himself into the dark,
Formed part of Him from Him apart.
While in His work His love made known,
What wasn’t God’s would soon be shown.
The suff’ring fields began to grow,
For Evil came at night to sow.
Among the grains of love and care
Now grew a pois’nous plant, a tare.
As suffering filled all of man
All-loving God all man became.
He walked the earthen, saddened sod
Loved, so we would know a suff’ring God.
He climbed a cross – our pain to own –
Up there felt hearts and nature groan.
Made sin (which lured man’s heart to stray)
His own – so man would choose His Way.
Isaiah 53:2-11
“He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.”
(poetry and pictures by Heidi Viars, 2019 … Scriptures taken from the ESV)
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