‘Man of Sorrows’ is a title used to describe Jesus in Isaiah 53. The whole chapter is about Jesus and the context around Isaiah 53:3 explains the title.

Who has believed our message?
    To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
    like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
    nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejected—
    a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
    He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
    a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all.

He was oppressed and treated harshly,
    yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
    And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
    he did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned,
    he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
    that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
    for the rebellion of my people.
He had done no wrong
    and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
    he was put in a rich man’s grave.

But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
    and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
    he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
    and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
    he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
    my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
    for he will bear all their sins.
I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
    because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
    He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebel

Isaiah 53

When we refer to Jesus as the ‘Man of Sorrows’, there are multiples points which we acknowledge.

Firstly, that He was a man, as the Bible says that He was fully God and fully man (John 1:14). Secondly, that He was and is acquainted with sorrow. Jesus can empathise with us because He has experienced deepest sorrow and has walked a far harder road than we have walked. Thirdly, that He was rejected and that this world still rejects Jesus and what He did for us. Fourthly, it was our sorrows that Jesus carried, not His own.

Jesus took on our sins and died in our place. The sinless Saviour was nailed to the cross with sorrow caused by our sin. The Man of Sorrows aptly paints a picture of the coincidence of humanity and divine nature – the infinite weight of sorrow laid on the human body of God.

Consider God as The Man of Sorrows.

Take some time to meditate on this aspect of God and worship Him for being The Man of Sorrows. 

Write down what it means for God to be The Man of Sorrows in your life.