Whom Have You Mocked and Reviled? .. Against the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 37:23)

 Whom Have You Mocked and Reviled? .. Against the Holy One of Israel     (Isaiah 37:23)

The setting in Isaiah is the fascinating story of the impending invasion of the Assyrians on Jerusalem. They had already captured the Norther Kingdom, and they were now threatening the Southern nation. Rabshakeh (an intimidating name), Sennacherib’s general, was urging Jerusalem to surrender or face a miserable end. In so doing, he heaped insults and futility upon faith in Israel’s God.

This was not the first time that a proud adversary had dumped scorn on God’s people. Do you remember Goliath facing down the armies of Israel under Saul? Do you remember how young David was offended that no one would stand up to such blasphemy? And so he did. But if it happened before, then we can be sure that it will happen again. And it did, to Jesus.

If Rabshakeh is guilty of mocking and reviling against the Holy One of Israel when he faced down the king’s representatives on the plot of ground outside of Jerusalem, then what of the situation when the very Son of God was arrested and lied about, scorned and mistreated, even spitting in His face. One cannot conceive of a more direct, personal affront to “the Holy One of God.”

Here we are now in mid-March, and just three weeks away from Good Friday. It is time for us to consider carefully again the humiliation of our Savior, Jesus the Christ. I don’t mean to say that we should not consider this all year long, just as we should not save our thanksgiving for Thanksgiving. But perhaps we should bring a special focus.

Luke gives us the following record: “Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking Him and beating Him, and they blindfolded Him and were asking Him, saying, ‘Prophesy, who is the one who hit You? And they were saying many other things against Him, blaspheming” (Luke 22:63-65). Think of this. The Creator was being pummeled by creatures that the Creator had created. The ‘Word made flesh’ was being subjected to a cruel game of “what do you know?”, as if He didn’t already know exactly who each one of them was and what was going to happen ahead of time. They were presuming themselves to be judges over the One is appointed to be Judge over all the earth.

We can justifiably condemn the actions of Goliath and Rabshakeh and the soldiers who held Jesus. But we must carefully reflect on how we ourselves treat Jesus, either with honor, or with shame.