Isaiah 51:17-23; 53:4-6

I think one of the reasons God’s love isn’t more amazing to me is my own mistaken sense of personal worth and desert. I tend to feel like God ought to love me. An inflated sense of self = a diminished sense of delight at being loved by God.

But the times when I am most amazed by and enraptured in God’s love are those times when I see it and feel most undeserving of it. That’s where texts like this one are so helpful.

In these verses God makes people drink the “cup of His wrath” as judgment for their sins: first rebellious Jerusalem (vv 17-20) and then Jerusalem’s enemies (vv 21-23). It’s quite a cup. It’s called “the cup of staggering” (vv 17, 22). It means devastation and destruction, famine and sword (v 19). Those who drink it pass out and lie in the streets (v 20) or lose control like a drunken man (v 21).

And then it gets very personal in chapter 53, where I read that I deserved to drink this cup. My sins earned punishment and sorrow from God, too; but when the cup passed to me, Jesus took it up and drained every drop (cf. Matthew 26:39). Amazing grace. Amazing love...