Most of us are familiar with the Disney classic Aladdin and the legend of a genie in a magic lamp granting 3 wishes to the person who finds and rubs it, especially with the recent remake and also the emergence of Disney Plus. If there were such a lamp and you were lucky enough to find it, what would you do if you had that much power? Even if you would use that power for something good to change the world and mankind, would it be the first thing you would do with your power? Would you ever even think of helping someone who had directly disobeyed you which hurt you deeply? Much like the fortunate person to find a lamp with a magic genie like Aladdin, God has all power. We know from Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve brought sin into the world by eating from the tree God told them not to and thus directly going against His one direction, God not only immediately provided for them through skins to clothe them (Genesis 3:21) when they realized they were naked only because of their sin, but He also immediately promised a Savior in Genesis 1:15 to help mankind defeat Satan and death and bring us back to Him.
Let me pose another question…..if you made a decision to help save someone who directly hurt you, would you be willing to go through much hardship and pain to do so if you could get the same result without it? God chose to save us and to take the pain upon His Son Jesus. He also chose to do so in the most humbling way possible. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tells us Jesus was a “man of sorrows” in Isaiah 53:3 who was despised and rejected.
Jesus came in to this world the son of a carpenter and young virgin, not a king and queen. Jesus and His family were rejected from the beginning, there was no room at the inn so he was born in a stable, not a castle, and placed in a manger, not a bed. As He became a man, we know nothing about His earthly home leading us to believe it couldn’t have been much. From Scriptures, we know He became hungry and thirsty. He felt the pain of losing a friend in Lazarus and cried. He was rejected by those in His own hometown. He was betrayed and given to the authorities to be killed by one of his 12 closest friends and followers, Judas. The remaining 11 then ran, abandoned Him, and hid when He was captured. One of His other closest friends and followers, Peter, denied he even knew Him. Then, despite seeing His mighty works and raising others from the dead, another of His closest friends, Thomas, refused to believe He was raised and had done what He said He would. In all of this, we have not even mentioned yet He was beaten and tortured to the brink of death and then was executed in one of the most gruesome and painful ways our world has ever known. No doubt He was a “man of sorrows.”
When we have a bad day, week, month, or are in some of the deepest valleys and toughest, most painful seasons of our life, we must remember we have a God and Savior who empathizes, knows, and cares about what we are experiencing because He experienced some form of the same pain. He didn’t have to, but He did. If we think we don’t deserve what we are going through, we can remember Jesus definitely didn’t deserve what He went through…all for us nonetheless. If we now think about the honor, power, and glory of Jesus, we might picture Him on a throne sitting at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, but we can be thankful while He was on this Earth…He was a “man of sorrows”…all for you and for me…so that our pain could be temporary and not eternal.