Lent is a time of contemplation upon the sins that nailed the sinless Jesus to the cross. It is not necessarily a time of doom and gloom, but of repentance, contemplation and reverence for the tremendous sacrifice God made to restore our broken nature.
Apart from Jesus we are broken. Badly broken. There is no amount of Gorilla Glue that can put our broken pieces back together again. We’re all like Humpty Dumpty; we’ve had a great fall and there is no way we can be made whole again, except for the atonement in Jesus Christ.
Without Christ we are eternally broken. We all suffer broken hearts, broken trust, broken promises, broken justice. We are all broken vessels. However, by grace through faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are fully restored. In Christ we are made whole, once again.
Through His broken body, we are healed. Through the breaking of the bread of the Lord’s Supper, we are assured of our full forgiveness. Through our brokenness as even His disciples, we come to acknowledge that His grace is sufficient for us, for His power is made perfect in our weakness; our brokenness. Paul learned that. John the Baptist learned that. All the Patriarchs and Prophets came to that realization, as a fruit of faith.
Brokenness is the theme for our midweek Lenten services. We are indeed broken, but we are restored in Christ. Brokenness is a blessed experience. It sends us to our knees before the cross of Jesus. It brings us, as it did for the Prodigal Son, to our senses, knowing that it is better in our Father’s house. God is the Potter, and we are His clay. He breaks us, shapes and molds us into the people He would have us be, as His already justified people in His Son Jesus Christ.
We may count our blessings of wealth, health, happiness, and all other good things we have from the hand of our loving Father. Yet, it is in the times of extreme brokenness that we experience the greatest blessings of all. It is then when we realize how helpless and broken we are, turn to God in repentance and cry out “Lord Jesus gave mercy on me, a poot miserable sinner!” It is in brokenness that we “return to the Lord our God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” He restores us and makes us whole, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!
