MEDITATING

Ruminate on the word you were drawn to in yesterday’s scripture passage (Isaiah 53:3-7). What does the word or phrase you have chosen mean to you today?

COMMENTS

When I listen to this scripture passage, I am drawn to the phrase “we held him of no account”. I cannot imagine that those who saw Jesus’ affliction fully knew in their hearts what they were doing, who they were witnessing. They did not see Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffering. Instead they saw someone suffering who, in their eyes, was of “no account”.

Why am I drawn to this phrase? I feel the reason rising almost against my will: am I guilty of this too? Gazing backwards through time, I have perspective; I know the one suffering was Jesus, and I profess Jesus to be of great account. I want to pray, “Not I, Lord! When have I ever seen you and held you to be of no account?”

I begin to see where my thoughts are headed, perhaps why this phrase stood out to me in the first place. Like those in Matthew 25, I am forgetting the connection between Jesus and the “least of these” people. When I don’t pay attention to someone who is suffering, whether a neighbor losing their home or an earthquake victim half a world away, I am not paying attention to Jesus.

Whose suffering am I overlooking? Which sufferers are, to me, of “no account”?

-Taylor Morgan

© Suffering Servant, Donald Jackson, 2005. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.