Food for Thought
Blessings On You
Rev. Dr. Wesley Smith, II
April 1, 2019
In June 1994, Judy and I visited Germany so that I could do some research on my dissertation. While we were over there we bought a beautifully crafted lead crystal serving dish. With a great deal of care and packaging, that dish stayed safe during our time in Germany and our return flight back to New Jersey. What we didn’t anticipate, however, was that our cat, Gizmo by name, would find his way to the top shelf where we kept the dish and knock it to the tile floor where it shattered into a multitude of tiny, shattered fragments. Broken fragments that, like Humpty Dumpty, could never be put back together again.
We are now more than halfway through Lent, and each passing day that draws us closer to the cross forces us to ask, “Why did Jesus go to the cross?” and “What is the meaning of Lent in my life right now?” it seems to me more and more every year that if Lent is about anything, it is brokenness. And that is my life every single day. Brokenness. It’s also part of the fabric of Lent. We see this most clearly in Peter’s repeated promise to stay with Jesus and never abandon or deny him. This promise gets broken time and time again. That, too, is part of our lives. We live, hear, and make broken promises all the time, such as:
All of these promise are like writing checks with our mouth that we know will bounce. Sometimes the only difference between a broken promise and an outright lie is that behind the promise is at least a good intention, albeit an intention that will never be met. But it’s because we can’t keep those promises that Christ, too, had to be broken. Broken on the cross.
If Lent is a time to ponder broken things, it is also urges us to consider how Jesus’ brokenness on the cross restores what we have broken. That’s also why we come to the Lord’s Table every Sunday to experience healing from our brokenness. No one knew this better than St Paul who records Jesus giving some broken pieces of bread to his disciples at the Last Supper with the words, “this is my body, broken for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24, KJV).
The magnitude of what is broken is beyond our imagination; nothing less than the world itself is broken. And yet, such is the magnitude of Christ’s redemption that it seeks to restore all that. Amazing how some broken wafers can bring us such healing and restoration every Sunday. But that’s Lent. And that’s why he was broken for you. Food for thought, indeed.