An Exchange with my Friend, Jay
Jay
It struck me just now that Christ always chose those humbled by life to spread his message. He didn’t go to the elites, he went to the sick and the poor. He did this, I’m now certain, because only those broken by life could hear his message. Those with power and security could shut his message out indefinitely. They didn’t have to hear it. But if they suffered a loss, a death, a fall, then and only then could they hear him. But he knew he didn’t have to go to them. In time, they would come to him. The strategy is sound.
I feel as I age and crack open more through the endless cycle of humbling, I’m starting to hear the message. It feels like a blessing.
Niall
What you write reminds me of the line from Rumi and Leonard Cohen: “The crack is where the light comes in.”
I’ve found this to be true in my own life and work too. Those humbled and broken by life (and broken too soon by man’s empires built on top of life) are the ones who sense the Christ-soaked world, even if they don’t use such words to describe it. Jesus reflected and amplified that light, in part, by affirming to the poor and broken that they were blessed rather than cursed; that what elite society saw as their sins was precisely what made them holy; that they were dispossessed by demonic systems not possessed by demons. How healing to hear that message, then and now!
Jay
Great reply. And it seems, too, that the crack is the opening of the eyes and the heart to seeing and loving.