Broken

A while ago, I was watching a TV program that is usually pretty light.  But in an unusually serious moment, one of the characters commented to the other one that she envied people who were “normal” and that it was only “broken” people like them who would do the type of job they did.  The other character commented back to her that she was only seeing the surface and that actually being “broken” WAS normal.  It was a very uncharacteristically profound moment in this silly show, but the idea has stuck with me and rolled around in my head as I’ve been living life these past weeks. 

When I was younger I assumed that most people were “normal” and a few unfortunate people had problems.  The older I became, and the more people I met, I was surprised discover that actually being “broken” IS normal.  We are all broken in some way.  Some of us wear it out loud for everyone to see with clothing, hairstyles, or accessories that scream for attention and draw people to recognize the brokenness instantly.  Some of us wear it outloud in a different way with anger, insecurity, fear, or attention seeking being the most noticeable feature we proclaim.  But most of us try hard to cover it with nice clothes, a pretty smile, and the façade that we’ve, “got it all together”.  We do our best to keep our emotions in check, do what we need to do, and not stand out from the crowd.  We hope desperately that no one notices our broken places.  Some of us are so good at this that we even succeed in fooling ourselves.  We aren’t comfortable with it in ourselves and so we understandably also dislike it in other people.  The more broken someone appears, the farther away from them we inch, hoping that their brokenness doesn’t somehow rub off on us, or cause someone (or ourselves) to notice our own. 

That’s why the gospel is so shocking to us.  While we are busying running away from brokenness, Jesus is busy running towards it.  The Bible from beginning to end is a story of us being broken, and Jesus coming to our rescue.  We all know the beginning, the first story of brokenness, but I find it so intriguing that the big rescue story that follows it, is full of little rescue stories full of the most broken people you can imagine.  I read this year a serious of fictional accounts of the women who made up the lineage of Jesus.  It told in a fictional, but historically accurate way what their lives might have been like living at that time in history from the little we know about them in the Bible:  a prostitute, a pagan widow, an adulterer, a woman who played a hooker to sleep with her father-in-law.  The list is sort of shocking really.  These women are not the ones that I would have picked to be mothers in the line of Jesus Christ.  Their stories are messy, messy in ways we don’t like to think about.  Thinking through their stories on a personal and historical level was fascinating.  I wouldn’t have chosen them, but Jesus did.  Of all the people in time and history, they were the ones He wanted to include in His story. And then when he came, he proved it again by spending his time with the outcasts, the sick, the poor, and the damaged instead of the rich, the royal, the religious, or the powerful.  He always goes straight for the broken ones.  

It reminded me again that the way I see things, and the way he sees things are so drastically different.  I see brokenness and want to walk away.  It makes me uncomfortable, it threatens to mess up my plans, it reminds me of my own brokenness, it just seems too messy.  But when he sees brokenness, he steps up, ready to offer hope, ready to work change, ready to rescue.  What a difference.  If I’m honest I need an attitude change.  I need to see the brokenness and not turn away.  I need to walk towards it, extend my hand, and offer an introduction to hope. 

We are all broken somehow in some way, I certainly am.  Neglect, betrayal, failure, bitterness, abandonment, abuse, addictions, loss, fear, sickness mark all of our stories somehow.  We live in a fallen world and none of us have escaped unscathed.  But there is hope.  He offers us healing, and demonstrates for us in the pages of scripture that there isn’t one of us that has fallen too far for grace.  No matter what your story, he is ready and willing to offer hope, forgiveness, and healing.  And because I’ve experienced that hope, forgiveness and healing I should be looking with his eyes out into his world, and stand ready to offer an introduction to hope.