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He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

᛭ INI ᛭

(5. Oops!: Christianity is an undesirable religion.)

Christianity is an unattractive religion. There’s no way to make it so to a sinful world. There’s no way to make it reasonable to human way of thinking. There’s no way to make it beautiful to a human heart or soul or mind. Christian teachings on morality and sin infuriate a world bent on pleasure. Christian preaching on Christ’s death frustrate atheist and agnostic alike. We can’t argue people into becoming Christians. We can’t market all of the traditional, historic teachings of the Christian faith.

(4. Ugh!: Christ is an undesirable Savior.)

This is so because Christ is unattractive. He’s undesirable. He isn’t palatable to our modern sensibilities. As our Old Testament reading says: He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. Our Gospel reading shows why. See what He went through! He’s “despised and gory” as the hymn puts it, a hymn taking its cue from Isaiah…

Now, you can try to change IHS into something else, someone else, but then He’s not the Christ of the Scriptures. Many try think Christ is a good example, that He was a man who had good moral teachings to follow, about love and acceptance. But eternal God or Savior or Sacrifice for sin? Not so much. Even many so-called Christians when polled don’t think IHS Christ is God, at least not as God as God the Father.

You can’t make Him into anything else, because nothing else fits everything we’re told about Christ in the Scriptures. He really is God. An undesirable sort of God. The sinful flesh is always trying to whitewash Christ, to paper over what He really did, or rather, what was done to Him:

• His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men; So shall He sprinkle many nations.
• He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

We’re sometimes a bit embarrassed about the cross, but not about the cross, right? It’s the crucifixion we’re embarrassed by. The horror of it all, but the horror of it all is the answer to the horror and magnitude of our sins. See how serious just one of your sins is! It required the death of the Son of God! He took on our flesh to do it, so that He can be one with us, but then look at Him! Christ crucified is an undesirable topic. Most Christians don’t even like crucifixes! The cross didn’t save us. Christ being crucified on it did. Many like to talk about the Christ child of Christmas, the risen Redeemer of Easter, the miracle Worker, the great Teacher, even the Judge of the living and the dead. But not Christ crucified. He’s undesirable to the world, to our human desires and way of thinking.

(3. Aha!: CHRIST IS AN UNDESIRABLE SAVIOR FOR UNDESIRABLE SINNERS.)

But dear friends in Christ, that’s actually the best news. That’s actually what makes Good Friday, Good. In fact, it’s what makes every day good! “The preaching of Christ crucified saves.” Christ is Savior, undesirable as He may to human standards. But the undesirable Christ crucified is not empty of power.

For sinners who are truly horrified by their sins, who not only feel bad for them but want to better. For sinners who are horrified because no matter how hard they want to do better they don’t end up being much better. For sinners who maybe get better in one spot but at the same time worse in others! Even St. Paul confessed this about himself. “Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Who will deliver, redeem, save you from it?

Your sins not only make you undesirable to the people you’ve sinned against, not only undesirable to yourself and your own standards. They make you undesirable to God. “The wicked will not stand [at His] judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.” (Ps 1) To such deplorable, such undesirable sinners, an undesirable Savior is Good News! That’s exactly who Christ is for—you, sinners!

CHRIST IS AN UNDESIRABLE SAVIOR FOR UNDESIRABLE SINNERS.

(2. Whee!: Undesirable sinners are made desirable, righteous saints.)

How undesirable was Christ? He was just undesirable to humanity. He was also undesirable to His Father. How undesirable to His Father? Christ cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Why did the Father forsake Him? Why was His beloved Son so undesirable to Him? The answer comes in our reading from 2 Corinthians: “He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin.” Whatever you’ve done to be undesirable to God, Christ became that! He bore it in His own body. It was credited to His account. He was undesirable Son in your place. This is how Christ’s life, Christ’s soul became a sin offering for you.

CHRIST IS AN UNDESIRABLE SAVIOR FOR UNDESIRABLE SINNERS.

But you are not undesirable sinner no more. “You must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ IHS our Lord.” Because “He was wounded for your transgressions. He was crushed for your iniquities. That punishment for your peace was upon Him. By His wounds your are healed,” forgiven. Paul puts it this way: “He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that you might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Because of what Christ has done for you—becoming undesirable sin, forsaken Son—you are now desirable saint, and beloved son. You are baptized into Christ. You are clothed with Christ and His righteousness. You’re an heir of God and co-heir with Christ. At Communion, you are sanctified with His blood, made part of His holy body, the Christian Church. Undesirable sinners are made desirable, righteous saints.

You are the righteousness of God in Christ, not only justified, but just and righteous and blameless in Good Works by faith. “Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.” “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion,” for you were “Created in Christ IHS for good works.” He sanctifies “your whole spirit, soul, and body to be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord IHS Christ.” And yet the flesh remains with all its undesirable passions and desires that are constantly waging war against Christ, God’s Kingdom, and His righteousness. And so CHRIST IS and ever remains in this life AN UNDESIRABLE SAVIOR FOR UNDESIRABLE SINNERS.

(1. Yeah!: Christ is desired by those made desirable.)

Those of us who are in Christ IHS by baptism through faith, those who are truly His members by faith through being grafted into Him through His body and blood, desire Christ. We want to do what’s pleasing to Him but still don’t because of our flesh. This is why Christians still make use of Christ’s Word, sermons, devotions, and the Supper of His body and blood, that He would make them all the more desirable and pleasing to Him and to His Father. Christ is desired, His Word is desired, His Sacrament is desired by those made desirable by faith. We delight not only His cross, but His crucifixion, death, and blood, for these are the only things that make us, and continually make us, desirable to God—“a sweet smelling aroma,” but also desirable “living sacrifices” to those around us.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord IHS Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by IHS Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace,” because

CHRIST IS AN UNDESIRABLE SAVIOR FOR UNDESIRABLE SINNERS.

᛭ INI ᛭