is53:1-3

The arm of the Lord - his salvation, his justice, his righteousness - was shown to us.  All of the healing and restoration that our world needs was set before us that we might find life and health.  The plagues of this world, brought about by sin, hatred, disease and death, were dealt with by the power of the Sovereign Lord.  This is the moment of his coming, and the hour of his appearance.  On this day his victory has been established.

But we rejected it.

Why?

Because it didn't come to us with great fanfare, and our would-be saviors always ascend to their thrones with great celebration and power.  Our wisdom assures us that the only way to overcome the world is with more vigorous debate, ever-increasing programs, more destructive bombs, clamoring campaign promises, and rousing public opinion.  Victors have their soldiers in the fight, and their entourage in the celebration march.  Instead, the arm of the Lord was given to us softly, quietly and unassumingly.  We were quite certain that this couldn't be the path to triumph.

And then we saw that he was ordinary.  Actually, below ordinary.  We look not only for the mighty and powerful, but for those who are attractive.  Those who have means in our culture go to great lengths to refine their own allure, and we follow them in our own adornment.  Our collective wisdom looks to magazines and listens to the broadcasts in order to hear what is fashionable and true and good.  We do not need anyone to redefine our sense of good, we have the voices of our self-appointed elite to do that.  We were quite certain that anyone who couldn't appeal to a wide range of people couldn't lead us on the path to triumph.

And then realized that he was quite humiliated, and therefore had no credibility for us any longer.  After all, heroes may get roughed up along the way but champions are never the ones who are beaten, bruised and tossed away as a joke.  The champion is the one who stands over the helpless body of his enemy, never cowering from the fight.  In our wisdom, once we realized that the pain and suffering of this so-called-arm-of-the-Lord, we determined that God had forgotten all about him . . . and so should we.  We were quite certain that even God himself wouldn't have us waste time on such failure.

So, how can this be called the mighty arm of the Lord?  In the collective wisdom of our world, it doesn't seem like much of a victory.