Jesus the Great Object of Astonishment

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(A Communion Address by Spurgeon, from his sick room at Mentone, France)

"Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. And many were astonished at You. His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; so shall He sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider." Isaiah 52:13-15

Our Lord Jesus Christ bore from of old the name of "Wonderful", and the word seems all too poor to set forth His marvelous person and character. He says of Himself, in the language of the prophet, "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given Me are for signs and for wonders." He is a fountain of astonishment to all who know Him, and the more they know of Him, the more are they "astonished" at Him. It is an astonishing thing that there should have been a Christ at all: the Incarnation is the miracle of miracles; that He who is the Infinite should become an infant, that He who made the worlds should be wrapped in swaddling-bands, remains a fact out of which, as from a hive, new wonders continually fly forth. In His complex nature He is so mysterious, and yet so manifest, that doubtless all the angels of heaven were and are astonished at Him. O Son of God, and Son of man, when You, the Word, were made flesh, and dwelt among us, and Your saints beheld Your glory, it was but natural that many should be astonished at You!

Our text seems to say that our Lord was, first, a great wonder in His griefs; and, secondly, that He was a great wonder in His glory.

I. He was a great wonder in his griefs: "As many were astonished at You; His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men."

His visage was marred: no doubt His countenance bore the signs of a matchless grief. There were plowings on His brow as well as upon His back; suffering, and brokenness of spirit, and agony of heart, had told upon that lovely face, until its beauty, though never to be destroyed, was "so" marred that never was any other so spoiled with sorrow. But it was not His face only, His whole form was marred more than the sons of men. The contour of His bodily manhood showed marks of singular assaults of sorrow, such as had never bowed another form so low. I do not know whether His gait was stooping, or whether His knees tottered, and His walk was feeble; but there was evidently a something about Him which gave Him the appearance of premature age, since to the Jews He looked older than He was, for when He was little more than thirty they said unto Him, "You are not yet fifty years old."

I cannot conceive that He was deformed or ungraceful, but despite His natural dignity, His worn and emaciated appearance marked Him out as "the Man of sorrows", and to the carnal eye His whole natural and spiritual form had in it nothing which evoked admiration; even as the prophet said, "When we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him." The marring was not of that lovely face alone, but of the whole fabric of His wondrous manhood, so that many were astonished at Him.

Our astonishment, when in contemplation we behold our suffering Lord, will arise from the consideration of what His natural beauty must have been enshrined as He was from the first within a perfect body. Conceived without sin, and so born of a pure virgin without taint of hereditary sin, I doubt not that He was the flower and glow of manhood as to His form, and from His early youth He must have been a joy to His mother’s eye. Great masters of the olden time expended all their skill upon the holy child Jesus, but it is not for the colors of earth to depict the Lord from Heaven. That "holy thing" which was born of Mary was "seen of angels," and it charmed their eyes. Must such loveliness be marred? His every look was pure, His every thought was holy, and therefore the expression of His face must have been heavenly, and yet it must be marred. Poverty must mark it; hunger, and thirst, and weariness, must plough it; heart-griefs must seam and scar it; spittle must disdain it; tears must scald it; smiting must bruise it; death must make it pale and bloodless. Well does Bernard sing —

"O sacred Head, once wounded,
With grief and pain weighed down,
How scornfully surrounded
With thorns, Your only crown;
How pale are You with anguish,
With sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish,
Which once was bright as morn!"

The second astonishment to us must be that he could be so marred who had nothing in His character to mar His countenance. Sin is a sad disfigurement to faces which in early childhood were surpassingly attractive. Passion, if it be indulged in, soon sets a seal of deformity upon the countenance. Men that plunge into vice bear upon their features the traces of their hearts’ volcanic fires. We most of us know some withered beings, whose beauty has been burned up by the fierce fires of excess, until they are a horror to look upon, as if the mark of Cain were set upon them. Every sin makes its line on a fair face. But there was no sin in the blessed Jesus, no evil thought to mar His natural perfectness. No redness of eyes ever came to Him by tarrying long at the wine; no unhallowed anger ever flushed His cheek; no covetousness gave to His eye a wolfish glance; no selfish care lent to His features a sharp and anxious cast. Such an unselfish, holy life as His ought to have rendered Him, if it had been possible, more beautiful every day.

Indulging such benevolence, abiding in such communion with God, surely the face of Christ must, in the natural order of things, have more and more astonished all sympathetic observers with its transcendent charms. But sorrow came to engrave her name where sin had never made a stroke, and she did her work so effectually that His visage was more marred than that of any man, although the God of mercy knows there have been other visages that have been worn with pain and anguish past all recognition. I need not repeat even one of the many stories of human woe: that of our Lord surpasses all. Remember that the face of our Well-beloved, as well as all His form, must have been an accurate index of His soul.

Physiognomy is a science with much truth in it when it deals with men of truth. Men weaned from simplicity know how to control their countenances; the crafty will appear to be honest, the hardened will seem to sympathize with the distressed, the revengeful will mimic goodwill. There are some who continually use their countenance as they do their speech, to conceal their feelings; and it is almost a point of politeness with them never to show themselves, but always to go masked among their fellows. But the Christ had learned no such arts. He was so sincere, so transparent, so child-like and true, that whatever stirred within Him was apparent to those about Him, so far as they were capable of understanding His great soul. We read of Him that He was "moved with compassion."

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