God’s chosen Servant “grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of dry ground.” (Isaiah 53:2)
“He has no stately form or majesty …Nor an appearance that we would
take pleasure in Him. He was despised and abandoned and a man of great sorrow
and familiar with grief….” —Isaiah 53:2-3.

[The latter prophecy foretold the birth of the Suffering Servant, understood to be Jesus of Nazareth, by Christianity.]

Thomas Merton said, “Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin.
It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose,
vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.”

“How often the highest talent lurks in obscurity.” —Plautus

“He who has lived obscurely and quietly has lived well. “ Ovid

“Out of the depths I have cried to You, LORD. Hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive to the sound of my pleadings.
If You, LORD, were to keep account of guilty deeds, Lord,
who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You,
LORD That YOU may be revered.” —Psalm 130:1-4