Loving Attention
Daily Devotion for Lent | Sunday, March 10 | The First Sunday In Lent
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Colossians 1:15
Have you ever tried to draw or paint another person? If you have, you know how carefully you look at him or her; you notice the texture of his skin, all the subtle colors in her hair; you gaze, you fill up your eyes with the way the person walks and moves and sits. It’s rather like love. You notice and pay attention to everything.
Isaiah the prophet did this for Jesus. The Holy Spirit helped him to know, hundreds of years in advance, exactly what Jesus would be like when He came. And Isaiah painted His portrait, lovingly and exactly, in chapter 53 of the book of Isaiah.
How did he show us Jesus? He saw that Jesus would be humble, with nothing in His appearance to attract us. He would be a man well-acquainted with sorrow and grief, someone marked by loss. More than that, He would be familiar with rejection—and that by the very people He came to save. Jesus would be misunderstood and mistreated and finally killed. And He would rise again.
Isaiah had his eyes fixed on Jesus. Jesus was the heart of what he wanted to know, of what he intended to pass on to everyone who would listen. And this is true for us too, isn’t it? Jesus is the one we love, the one we watch with all our hearts. And that’s because He has loved us first.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). It’s easy to feel forgotten by God when bad things happen. But Isaiah shows us that never, for a single moment, has the Lord turned His attention away from us. He not only knows our griefs, He has carried them. Our suffering has become His own—because He loves us.
THE PRAYER
Lord, Your love and mercy shine from You. Draw us closer to You every day. Amen.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- When have you studied someone intensely because you loved him or her?
- Which verse in Isaiah’s description of Jesus (Isaiah 53) means the most to you, and why?
- Since Jesus is the image of the invisible God, what does that tell you about God’s personality? About His attitude toward you?
Brought to you in partnership with Lutheran Hour Ministries – lhm.org/lent
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About These Devos
PEOPLE OF THE PASSION Lenten Devotions 2019
Centuries before Christ, God was preparing the way for His Son’s arrival. From mankind’s original sin through the children of Israel’s on-again, off-again obedience, God was faithful, honoring His promise to Eve (Genesis 3:15), which first pointed to Jesus. In People of the Passion, we see God working through the lives of ordinary people to achieve His ultimate aim: our salvation. There are prophets, priests, and kings, servants, soldiers, and civilians—each with a role in the high drama of Christ’s passion. Readers may see themselves in some of these people—ordinary individuals who, like us, need a Savior.
Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM) is a Christian outreach ministry supporting churches worldwide in its mission of Bringing Christ to the Nations—and the Nations to the Church.