"What a vulnerable king we have. A voluntary vulnerability to identify with us in our weakness.A king that needs to borrow a donkey. A king helped onto the donkey by his friends. "The Lord needs it." A Lord with needs. ... It is harder to receive than it is to give. ... I've been a receiver. I've been a dependant. ... I have an acute sense of what it means to be in need. It feels vulnerable. I feel like a burden."
Of course, the big lie the world wants us to believe is that we are not weak, that we shouldn't need anything or anybody, that we are kings and queens of all we survey, and that the whole creation is ours to command. The Big Truth is that our true self, Christ in us, alive in us, is poor and vulnerable, crucifiable, and in need. In his reflection, Kevin canonizes his wife because she is lovingly responding to his current involuntary dependence on her. He also notes that it feels vulnerable and like he is a burden. My guess is that Jesus felt vulnerable, too, that he had to rely on His friends to get up on a borrowed donkey, that they wouldn't get it (no kidding), and that He would be alone. But He was vulnerable in the context of living in the Boundless Love of the Trinity. I am reminded of this little piece, one of my favorite passages of the New Testament, in 1 Cor 1:18-31:
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside. "Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith. For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast 11 before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord."Prayers, unceasingly, for Kevin and his household of faith.
1 comment:
Thank you, Kevin.
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