Nowadays people refer to things as “abuse” that formerly they would have called other things. I think I would have understood the word “abuse” in the past to have the meaning of rude or slanderous expressions, indeed “abusive” expressions, used against someone, although there was always the possibility of abusing a confidence, in which the word got closer perhaps to its root meaning.

Nowadays however, when  we read in the newspaper about abuse in categories such as physical, psychological and sexual, this would cover what was meant by saying that someone was, in the older expression “ill-used”.

Moreover there are two types of “being used”, or rather ill-used or as we say “abused”: the type on the one hand where the one being so used allows it through an incapacity to alter the situation, and on the other, the type where the one being ill-used allows it, not through incapacity, but for forbearance out of unceasing and courageous concern or care for the clumsy or perhaps ill-intentioned offender.

Scripture shows clear models of One who takes the role of the abused, or ill-used. In Isaiah chapter 53, there is a depiction, drawn several centuries before the advent of Jesus, of a suffering Servant, whose ill-use by men fulfils a positive purpose for his abusers.

He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our iniquities; and upon him was the chastisement that made us whole. With his stripes we are healed. And ultimately, as the Scripture says, “He shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.”

This is a model, inserted amazingly in the pages of the Old Testament, of One who suffered abuse victoriously. In history we see this prophecy being fulfilled by Jesus Christ, hundreds of years afterwards. Hebrews 5: 8f in our New Testament lesson says, “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

The abuse he suffered at the hands of our race, was for our eternal rescue, but we now have to be submitted to His spirit and continue to be submitted to Him for that eternal rescue to bear fruit for us, for it is the unsubmitted character or nature of the actions of our race that caused His sufferings, and from which we need to be saved.

St. Mark chapter 10 depicts a scene of Jesus and His disciples on the road to Jerusalem in which the character of Jesus, submitted to the will of His Father and to the purpose of our eternal rescue, and the character of the disciples, still so strikingly unsubmitted to His spirit, are shown in severe contrast.

James and John, who might well have been Jesus’ natural cousins, ask, or as in St. Matthew’s account, get their mother to ask on their behalf, for the top positions in what they call His glory.

Their request might well be interpreted as a family attempt to steal a march on Peter, in which they try to enlist Jesus to their idea of keeping leadership within the close family circle.

Jesus tells them that in asking such a thing they are entirely without understanding. Indeed they were abusing His call to them to be His apostles. They were seeking to take selfish advantage of their position. And this was just at the time when His mind was on the cup of suffering and the baptism of torture that He was to undergo.

For He was to give his life as a ransom for many. Although He was God in the Person of the Son, He was to suffer God-abuse for us.

In these days we are frequently reminded about the pain inflicted upon some of the vulnerable of society.

We are horrified by accounts of some of the child-abuse that is taking place within the families of these islands and all over the world, and we are fearful of what these children will make of themselves and of the world when they become adult.

We find the pain inflicted upon members of what used to be called the gentler sex difficult to understand or even believe. It does not appear that modern formulations of gender equality or sexual freedoms are doing very well for human relationships in general, and under the circumstances it seems more difficult rather than easier for men to understand their own identity or their proper roles.

So there is frustration rising to boiling-point, sometimes overflowing in the violent reaction of what we call verbal and physical abuse.

The Gospel is that God has taken responsibility for addressing the ills of the world, and for bringing us healing. Jesus Himself teaches us, as He taught His very shaky disciples, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

The Son of God brings salvation to all the injured of this age by Himself being injured and abused and taking their suffering upon Himself, and finally seeing the fruit of the travail of His soul through the resurrection, rescue and renewal He serves to them, to which they and we are invited and admitted.
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