Altogether Lovely

Our choir sings Here I Am To Worship often and it's one of my favorite praise songs.  "You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me."  I don't feel I can ever tell Jesus enough how beautiful He is.

The Bible tells us in reality there wasn't anything special about Jesus from a purely physical perspective.  He was ordinary.  He wouldn't turn heads, command attention, get noticed in a crowd.  "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him." (Isaiah 53:3)  And yet, He was lovely.

Our perspective of people is often formed by their outward appearances.  But all of us know at least one person who is beautiful on the outside, and vile and ugly on the inside.  Conversely, the least attractive people can be people we see as most beautiful because they are people of character.  They are selfless, compassionate,  and giving.  Their inner beauty outshines their outward appearances.  Jesus was one of these people.

As the song says: "He stepped down into darkness.  Humbly came to the earth He created.   All for love's sake became poor.  And took my sins upon Himself" to die a horrible, undeserved death on the cross.

What could be more lovely to me?  What could be more wonderful to me?  Absolutely nothing.

For a more scholarly offering click on the link below to read The Undesirable Jesus by Robert H. Farish.  The Undesirable Jesus