Staff aim every morning to explain the gospel or present an aspect of the gospel in some way. Every morning pointing guests at Webber Street to Jesus.
This morning, Daniel Taylor welcomes the guests and reminds them that they are following a theme “Jesus Understands”. Today he broaches the theme of rejection – Jesus understands what it is to be rejected.
Men here have all experienced rejection of different kinds. Many have been turned away by immigration authorities, by employers for jobs and opportunities. Daniel suggests that the rejection that hurts the most is personal rejection.
He reads the whole of the suffering servant song in Isaiah 53 as a poetic portrait of Jesus.
Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
The whole chapter quite a long poem. Most of the men have their heads down at this point and the room is very still; some are looking at the day’s papers and it’s difficult to know how many are taking in what is being said.
Daniel invites everybody to consider that Jesus understands what it is to be rejected and cast aside. He came to suffer rejection on behalf of each of us; he was despised and suffered to bear our sins.
It’s a passionate and clear exploration of the gospel.
Later in the day Daniel says, “This morning I wanted to share the gospel while at the same time understanding to a certain degree, where they come from and the challenges that they are facing.
“Even those who look like they’re uninterested in that like they’re reading the paper, that they’re still actually listening and taking something in.”
Many of the guests do have a living faith in Jesus, and the Bible-based talks at the beginning of the day do help to sustain men and women who are living in very difficult circumstances to keep walking with Jesus.
