The theme that runs through Isaiah's message of the suffering servant is that this is God's servant who is despised, rejected, regarded as worthless. The point isn't physical disfigurement, or physical ugliness--but that the treatment of the servant is horrendous. The world recoils away from the servant because of how "ugly" the servant is; but this is the One through whom healing comes.
The cross is ugly. It's horribly grotesque and ugly. Yet God chose the weak and foolish things of the world, so while the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, to us who are being saved it is the very power of God.
The cross is not about how intense Jesus' physical suffering was. It's not that Jesus suffered more than any other person who ever lived. It's not that Jesus was beaten worse than anyone ever was, or that He experienced more pain than anyone ever did.
The Atonement is not conditional on the intensity of Jesus' personal anguish.
It's about Christ's active, lowly, humble participation in the ugliness of man--in the ugliness of sin and death. Christ willingly walked in our muck. And He did it with joy. The Eternal God chose to become a friend and servant to sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors. Christ became a servant to rapists, murderers, liars, thieves, and every manner of wretch--in other words, you and me.
The ugliness of the cross, the scandal of the cross, is the beauty of the cross. What the world regards as ugly, worthless, something to be despised and disposed of--that's what God became. The world despises the weak, God became weak; the world despises the small, God became small; the world despises the foolish, the humble, the lowly--so God became the foolish, the humble, and the lowly. Not only to redeem the lowly, but also to save the proud.
The world responded to God with violence, and how does God respond to that violence? "I love you and forgive you". God takes that violence, God takes that hate, God takes the full 100mph 18-wheeler truck of human disgust, and He opens wide His arms to be struck at it with full force. And what happens? God heals the world, God saves the world, God takes the oppressed and says, "You will be Mine" and then He turns to the oppressors and says, "You too will be Mine". And He says He will bring both of them, sit them both at His Table, and that all shall feast together in love and peace and brotherhood in God's House.
It's not about Jesus' physical appearance. It's not even about the intensity of His physical anguish. It's about Christ "who being in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to exploit, but emptied Himself, by taking on the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of human beings, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." - Philippians 2:6-8
-CryptoLutheran