Comments on: Ugly = Wicked http://www.doveintherock.com/index.php/2007/10/18/ugly-wicked/ "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:54:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Bonnie http://www.doveintherock.com/index.php/2007/10/18/ugly-wicked/comment-page-1/#comment-68 Bonnie Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:07:27 +0000 http://www.doveintherock.com/index.php/2007/10/18/ugly-wicked/#comment-68 Unfortunately, as you have touched on, the attributes and "virtues" of physical beauty is so so so ingrained in our beings that even if you aren't trying to judge people by their looks, it is instinctual, subconscious behavior. What is it about the eye and the brain that enjoy beauty? One can't help but enjoy looking at something that is beautiful, a sunset, a waterfall, a cute baby, a pretty face, a nice figure. It sure takes a monumental amount of effort, a daily, long-term discipline, to not let physical appearance have an effect on your impressions of people. That's why the passage in Isaiah 53 really speaks to me of God's omniscience of the tendencies of our human nature: when Jesus came in the form of a man, he intentionally came as an ordinary person. "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (vs 2b - 3) He came as an ordinary person so that we would know that no matter what difficulties we faced due to our physical appearance, no matter how cruel the world's judgements, and especially if we concluded in self-pity that we had been dealt an unfair hand, God Himself would always be able to relate to us, and had faced the exact same, and most probably, worse judgement than us. There's my soapbox. Unfortunately, as you have touched on, the attributes and “virtues” of physical beauty is so so so ingrained in our beings that even if you aren’t trying to judge people by their looks, it is instinctual, subconscious behavior. What is it about the eye and the brain that enjoy beauty? One can’t help but enjoy looking at something that is beautiful, a sunset, a waterfall, a cute baby, a pretty face, a nice figure. It sure takes a monumental amount of effort, a daily, long-term discipline, to not let physical appearance have an effect on your impressions of people.

That’s why the passage in Isaiah 53 really speaks to me of God’s omniscience of the tendencies of our human nature: when Jesus came in the form of a man, he intentionally came as an ordinary person.
“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (vs 2b – 3) He came as an ordinary person so that we would know that no matter what difficulties we faced due to our physical appearance, no matter how cruel the world’s judgements, and especially if we concluded in self-pity that we had been dealt an unfair hand, God Himself would always be able to relate to us, and had faced the exact same, and most probably, worse judgement than us. There’s my soapbox.

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