Our Follow Him podcast this morning challenged us to slow down when we read scripture. Mosiah 14 seemed like a good place to start since Abinadi is quoting Isaiah about our Savior's offering for sin and His intercession for our transgressions.
Isaiah wrote these words about 700 years before Jesus was born, yet he speaks as though Christ's suffering has already happened. Then I remembered that Abinadi quoted them more than 500 years after Isaiah wrote them. The prophecy had been preserved for centuries because the Lord wanted His children to know what His Son would willingly do for them.
Isaiah says Jesus would grow up "as a tender plant." I wonder how His nurturing differed from mine. I also struggle with Isaiah's description that He had "no form nor comeliness." Nearly every painting I've seen portrays a strikingly handsome Savior. Perhaps Isaiah simply meant there was nothing outwardly remarkable about Him. It was His character—not His appearance—that drew people to Him.
Despised. Rejected. Acquainted with grief. Wounded. Bruised. Isaiah saw it all centuries before it happened. Why? For us. For our peace. For our healing. He did that for me. He did it for each of us.
When Isaiah says, "He opened not his mouth," I have to smile. I know I would have wanted to whisper, "You're not going to like yourself on resurrection morning." But that wasn't Jesus. He remained silent because He was doing the very thing that would save even those who were causing His suffering.
Then I came to the question, How could He do it?
Isaiah gives the answer in one simple phrase:
"He shall see his seed."
He saw us.
He saw that our only hope of returning to our Heavenly Father was His willingness to complete the Father's plan. "He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied."
He bore our sins. He redeemed us from our transgressions.
He did it for me.
That makes me His seed—His child.
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