God’s people said, “The LORD has forsaken and forgotten us.” Christ says, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.” (Isaiah 49:14-16)
This is Part 3 of a 5-part series. Here are Christ Will Not Forget You, Part 1 and Part 2.
Does Anyone Remember?
I remember seeing old, wooden grave markers in a churchyard in Taos, New Mexico. But I couldn’t read the inscriptions because the names and dates had been worn away by weather over many years. Human beings were buried there, people made in God’s image and likeness. They were precious in the Lord’s sight — but their grave sites were so sad. Nothing hurts more than being ignored, overlooked, or forgotten. Did anyone remember these people?
Isaiah’s words remind me of Athazagoraphobia, the fear of forgetting or fear of being forgotten. Alzheimer’s and dementia patients can dread forgetting their own identity and other important things. Also the spouses or caregivers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients can be afraid that their loved ones will not recognize them. Children can also have this fear if they are left alone or been ignored for long periods of time.
Here in Isaiah, Jesus reaches down to assure us that He will never ever forget any of His followers. Christians are Christ’s little brothers and sisters, and He will never reject us. All who repent and believe on the Son of God become adopted children of the Heavenly Father. Charles Spurgeon loved to preach on the verses above and said, “Such a Scripture as this should be preached hundreds of times!” This thought is so precious that we can run over it in our minds again and again.
How Does Isaiah Point us to Christ?
I’m taking a Christ-centered interpretation to Isaiah because that’s how Jesus taught us to read the whole Old Testament. Isaiah, written 700 years before Jesus lived on earth, points directly to Christ. Isaiah 7 announces Christ’s virgin birth. Isaiah 9 tells us that Jesus will be God’s King with four names: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Isaiah 49 speaks of God including the Gentiles (non-Jews) in Christ’s wonderful plan of salvation. The Lord promised: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through Abraham.”1 This is what Jesus came to accomplish.
Isaiah 53, one of the most moving chapters in the whole Bible, describes Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection for us.
Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering,
Yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)
The New Testament quotes from Isaiah 53 seven times, in each case applying it to Jesus the Christ, so that is the standard Christian interpretation of Isaiah.Z
Freedom in Christ
Near the start of Jesus’ ministry, He stood in the synagogue and read Isaiah 61:1-2:
The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:14-30)
How does Christ set us free? Christ redeemed and purchased us for God by becoming a curse for us as He hung on the Cross. Then Jesus rose from the grave to give us newness of life and bodily resurrection on the last day. Christ will call His people out of every grave, even the depths of the sea! Jesus did that for us so that the blessing given to Abraham might reach the Gentiles, and so that by faith we receive the promise of the Holy Spirit.”2 Wow!
Philip Yancey, in Disappointment with God, says, “Knowledge is passive and intellectual. Suffering is active and personal. No intellectual answer will solve our problem of suffering. This is why God sent His own Son as His remedy to our human pain, to experience it and to absorb it into Himself.” That’s the good news of Christianity!
Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed me white as snow.
Why do Jesus’ Followers Still Feel Forsaken or Forgotten?
Life was hard in Isaiah’s day and throughout Old Testament times. Bad kings, wars, disasters, and evil were as common then as they are now. People wrote Psalms pouring out their honest feelings. We can pray with them: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?… Do not hide Your face from me, do not turn Your servant away in anger. You have been my Helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior… Arise, Lord! Lift up Your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless… How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide Your face from me?”3
These prayers are preserved in Scripture for us to use in speaking to God as directly as the Bible character did. Yancey says that we tend to think, “Life should be fair because the Lord is fair. But God is not life. If we confuse the Lord with the harsh realities of this fallen world, then we set ourselves up for crashing disappointment. Many of us expect constant health, endless success, problem-free relationships, happily-ever-after. But the Lord never promised these things.” Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, “Enjoy prosperity while you can, but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. Remember that nothing apart from God is certain in this life.”4
Yancey reminds us that the Book of Job teaches that we can say anything and everything to God. We can take all our grief, anger, doubt, bitterness, and feelings of betrayal to the Lord. He can absorb it all. The spiritual giants of the Bible wrestled with God, but they never shut Him out. We can’t deny our feelings or make them disappear, but we can express them to the Lord and ask for His help. And God can handle it. What the Lord won’t tolerate is ignoring Him or acting as if He does not exist. Scripture says. “In their pride, wicked people do not seek God. In all their thoughts there is no room for the Lord.”5 Let’s not be like that, dear ones. Let us cast all our anxieties and burdens onto Jesus because He cares for us deeply.6
Can Christ Connect with Us?
Jesus is alive and reigning in Heaven, but He is not yet with us visibly again. Today we see Him through eyes of faith, and we can hear Him as we listen to His Word, the Bible. He has entered His Father’s presence to pray for us.7 At the same time, by His Holy Spirit, Christ connects personally with each one of us in everyday ways. Jesus is still with us, close to us, and near through His Holy Spirit at the deep level of a good friend. The Lord empathizes with our weaknesses because He has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet He never disobeyed God. Whatever we are facing, Christ knows how we feel. He is with us, every moment, every step of the way.8
Hallelujah! What a Savior! Hallelujah! What a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving, He is with us to the end.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You for promising to never leave us, reject us, or forget us. Thank You for making us precious to the Holy Trinity. Thank You for enduring scorn, shame, and the heaviness of all our sin so that we could be reconciled to You. You know how we feel on good and bad days. Thank You for praying for us. Where we have wandered, help us to return and submit completely to You. Help us to surrender all our sin, sorrow, anger, guilt, and worry to You because You are big enough to take it all. Good Shepherd, lead us now in paths of righteousness for Your Name’s sake. Hear us, help us, and have mercy upon us. Amen.
You can read Christ Will Not Forget You (Part 4)
Notes (various Bible translations): 1 Gen 12:3. z Matt 8:14-17; John 12:37-41; Luke 22:35-38; 1 Peter 2:19-25; Acts 8:26-35; Rom 10:11-21. See also R. L. Solberg on “Isaiah 53: The Forbidden Chapter.” 2 Gal 3:13-14. God pronounced a curse on Adam and Eve because of they distrusted and disobeyed Him (Gen 3:17-19). We sin like them and we have inherited the curse. Death entered the human experience and with it all sorts of affliction and trouble. When Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” He announced that He came to reverse this curse and all its consequences for His followers and for all His creation. 3 Psalm 22:1, 27:9, 10:12, 13:1. 4 Eccles 7:14, 12:13-14. 5 Psalm 10:4. 6 1 Peter 5:7. 7 Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25. 8 With help from Rev. Arthur Schoonveld (1936-2024), Christian Reformed Church.