“For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2).

The New Testament writers say nothing at all concerning the physical appearance of the Lord when He became a man. Human tradition would picture Him as a strong athlete or handsome star, but the Scriptures indicate otherwise.

Our text is from the greatest of the Messianic prophecies. It tells us that, as a child, He would “grow up as a tender plant,” like a “root out of a dry ground.” Humanly speaking, He was unimpressive. He had “no form nor comeliness” and “no beauty.” He was a very ordinary appearing man. In fact, when Christ became man, He “took upon Him the form of a servant [literally ‘slave’]” (Philippians 2:7). Matthew, referring to Isaiah 53:4, says that He even “took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matthew 8:17).

What all this means may not be clear, but it does seem to tell us that Jesus was a very ordinary sort of man, physically. Furthermore, humanly speaking, He was quite poor, having been raised in the despised town of Nazareth, in the impoverished province of Galilee. “Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor,” we are told (II Corinthians 8:9).

Yet this ordinary person was none other than the incarnate Creator, the Son of God! He had come, as the “Son of man”—representing all people, most of whom are also just average men and women—“to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

Then, even His tender body was beaten beyond recognition and His meager possessions taken away, when He was “made . . . sin for us, who knew no sin” (II Corinthians 5:21), and died in our place, to save us ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny in the world to come! HMM