Isaiah 53:3 “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
To hide “our faces from him” is to not present ourselves before Him, to not go before Him in prayer, and to not come before Him to worship and serve Him in our lives and in His Church. When we are away, we long to see the “faces” of those that we so dearly love. Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica, that he “endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire” (I Thessalonians 2:17), and “Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face” (I Thessalonians 3:10). Our Beloved Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to (allegorically) see the “faces” of His Children. But, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” (John 1:11); that is, they hid their “faces from him”! The pain in our hearts is devastatingly severe when someone we love rejects us, turning their “face” from us. Our Savior was “rejected”; for, the people “hid” their “faces from him”. Our beloved Lord cried out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37). But our Sovereign Eternal Holy God does not just go off to some lonely place and helplessly weep and pout the way we often do when we are deeply hurt. But, he told them “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” (Matthew 22:38); that is, He withdrew His protection and provision from them and then their adversaries utterly destroyed them. Oh Lord God, have mercy upon us, guide us and draw us after you that we will not hide our “faces” from you, that we will, in faithful and loving obedience, “Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore.” (Psalms 105:4)!