An Unexpected Super-Hero For The Underdogs & The RebelsÂ
As I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the prideful, rich and powerfulâGod is tilted toward the underdog.Â
"He has brought down rulers from their thrones but lifted up the humble.Â
He has filled the hungry with good things but sent the rich away empty,â said Mary in her Magnificat.
I wonder what Mary thought about her militant hymn during her harrowing years in Egypt.Â
For a Jew, Egypt evoked bright memories of a powerful God who had flattened a pharaohâs army and brought liberation; now Mary fled there, desperate, a stranger in a strange land hiding from her own government.Â
Could her baby, hunted, helpless, on the run, possibly fulfill the lavish hopes of His people?
Growing up, Jesusâ sensibilities were affected most deeply by the poor, the powerless, the oppressed - in short, the underdogs.Â
Today theologians debate the aptness of the phrase âGodâs preferential option for the poorâ as a way of describing Godâs concern for the underdog.Â
Since God arranged the circumstances in which to be born on planet earth - without power or wealth, without rights, without justice - His preferential options speak for themselves.
-Philip YanceyÂ
Isaiah 53
Who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
My servant grew up in the Lordâs presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejectedâ
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses He carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed Him down.
And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for His own sins!
But He was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left Godâs paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all.
He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet He never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
He did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned, He was led away.
No one cared that He died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But He was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
He was put in a rich manâs grave.
But it was the Lordâs good plan to crush Him
and cause Him grief.
Yet when His life is made an offering for sin,
He will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lordâs good plan will prosper in His hands.
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.
I will give Him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because He exposed Himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
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