Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 March 2005 16:43:26
I have been thinking a lot about the word broken. I'm sure it used to be a bad word, but now I keep seeing it as almost a "buzz word" for the church. I'm thinking particularly of that song "Men of Faith Rise Up and Sing", which I'm no fan of anyway, which contains it in every verse.
"You are strong when you feel weak/ In your brokenness complete" comes to mind particularly. Then there's the Matt Redman song with the phrase "I'm humbled by your mercy, and I'm broken inside". Then (at a completely different end of the Christian scale, I think) comes the Ragamuffin Gospel with its emphasis on the beaten up and broken and bewildered (that's probably a misquote). So are we a church of broken people - and does it matter?
I just found an online dictionary with some definitions of the word, including; damaged, divided, interrupted, ended and not kept. Is that what the body of Christ looks like? Actually, when I look around, it pretty much , but I wonder who has done the breaking in the first place. Is it the world, or (as Matt Redman seems to be implying) do we have to be broken in order to heal straight, rather like people's broken arms when they knit together wrong.
Should we be parading our brokenness as we seem to be doing - or should we focus rather on Jesus' ability to make us whole again. I just don't know... If I'm broken then I'm sure I'd rather be mended... does that happen this side of Heaven?