"Despised and Rejected of Men"

Psalm 22:6-10: But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.  All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He strusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!  But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother's breasts.  I was cast upon You from birth.  From My mother's womb You have been My God. 

How was Christ despised and rejected?

1.    Christ was treated brutally, subjected to all kinds of suffering (Matthew 27:39-43; Mark 15:29-32; Luke 23:35-37).  Christ said that he was treated like a worm.  Isaac Watts wrote the Hymn “Would he devote that sacred Head, for such a worm as I?  This has been sanitized in our hymnal to read: For sinners such as I.  Jesus was denied a fair trial—brutally beaten during the trial.  If that was not enough, he was brutally treated during while on the Cross.  Christ was not delivered from suffering, but was delivered through suffering, and He transformed that suffering into glory.  The message of the book of Job, which we are studying right now on Sunday evenings is, that there is no contradiction or conflict between God’s love and human suffering in the will of God.  Jesus was doing the Father’s will, and the Father loved Him, yet Jesus was suffering. 

2.    Christ, in the midst of suffering, reminds the Father  of His care for the Son (1:8-10).  Jesus reminds the Father that His birth into the world had been a part of the Father’s plan.  Satan had tried to prevent Jesus was coming into the world, but Satan had failed.  This past treatment is a basis for the Son knowing that He could trust the Father at this hour.