“Consistency under pressure”

Meditation – Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Isaiah 50: 4-9a (Forward, p. 77) CEV p. 745

Increasingly governments are enacting measures to prevent the widespread damage that can sometimes occur when a region experiences a severe earthquake. Some of these measures include toughened up building codes in terms of the materials used and even the building design itself. Other measures include standards with regards to foundations and such things as the underlying rock formations (for instance, no mud and fill). They want to ensure that the building will stand ‘when the going gets tough.’

The same kind of standard or goal might also apply to people: will a particular individual still be able to stand ‘when the going gets tough’? Certainly, that could be said of our Lord Jesus:

-our opening verses speak of His consistency in terms of the task:

God had made Him willing to listen and not rebel or run away.

Accordingly, God would awake Him each morning and He’d

be ready and set, eager to learn from God.

That meant that He had the right words, the words from God

Himself, to encourage and sustain the weary.

-but that doesn’t mean that it was ‘all sweetness and light’, not in the

least:

His enemies would beat Him, pull out His beard, insult Him,

and spit in His face.

Nevertheless, He knows that the Lord will keep Him from being

disgraced, and so He refuses to give up. He knows that the

Lord will never let Him down.

He knows that the Lord is nearby and will help Him, and prove

that He is innocent. Indeed, His accusers ‘will wear out like

moth-eaten clothes’.

To me, this is incredibly reassuring and wonderful: to think that our Lord doesn’t give up, no matter what happens, doesn’t give up on us, or on our world. Like a solid rock or a well-designed building, He stands tall and resolute and able to help us, regardless of what comes our way. Thanks be to God.

Forward notes: “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard” (verse 6a).

“The British goldfinch differs from the American goldfinch because it has a red mark around its eyes and beak. According to legend, a goldfinch flew over Christ’s head as he hung on the cross and was distressed by the thorns, so the bird attempted to pluck them off. As the bird was plucking the thorns, some of Jesus’s blood dripped onto the bird, creating the distinctive red patch of feathers on its head.

“I take comfort in this story as the darkest hours of the liturgical year draw near. Digging deep to find hope, the thought of a goldfinch hovering over the head of our dying Savior and helping him seems rather beautiful. Though today’s passage from Isaiah is more about the suffering servant’s willingness to be subjected to whatever the coming ordeals are, there is a joy in the legend that the goldfinch always carries a mark left by the blood of Christ.”

Moving Forward: “What mark of the blood of Christ do you carry?”