Broken to Pieces

Broken to Pieces.  Brokenness is hardly a desirable trait. When our children occasionally fell hard and cried out for comfort, “Is it broken?”, they sometimes received an overly Stoic and unhelpful response: “If it were broken, you would know it.” Brokenness is all-consuming. The universe ceases to exist when the stab of pain throbs through every synapse. Blood congeals, words disintegrate, digestion stops, cognition slows. In that sense, brokenness should be avoided at all costs because pain is downright awful. Therefore, to risk physical brokenness, or to snap back into action despite brokenness, is the rare exception to the rule.

In what has become known in soccer as “The Match of the Century,” West German footballer, Franz Beckenbauer, in the 1970 World Cup championship against Italy, dislocated his shoulder but could not exit the game. West Germany had used all its allotted substitutions. Heavily bandaged with an improvised sling, Beckenbauer played on at a high level.  Although West Germany lost, Beckenbauer’s endurance through brokenness is remembered more than Italy’s title.

Carrying on is not what we normally do when we are broken. Though few can tap into it, there is a plane higher than brokenness. Pain is never inconsequential, but sometimes an outside power lifts us up above pain. Brokenness does not get the last word in pain.

Spiritually, Jesus spoke of brokenness in ironically positive terms. The larger context is about repentance and the importance it has in the kingdom of God. The religious rulers saw repentance as a weakness to be avoided at all costs, but the tax collectors and prostitutes who met Jesus’ mercy repented of their sin and believed the gospel in full view of everyone. In that way, they were willingly, openly broken, showing courage in the face of otherwise debilitating spiritual pain that the religious rulers could not understand and dismissed as ludicrous. To those opposite attitudes to brokenness, Jesus declares an apparent paradox: “And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him” (Matt. 21:43-44). It is better to be broken toward Jesus than to mask brokenness toward everyone else. Brokenness is not an end, but the beginning.

“Broken to pieces” at the foot of the cross of Jesus is the most positive, most secure, most elusive situation in all time. “Broken to pieces” is the fruit of repentance. “Broken to pieces” finds unlooked-for help. “Broken to pieces” leads to faith, hope, and love, “but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). “Broken to pieces” brings healing; it becomes life. “Broken to pieces” is something that the proud boy, the religious expert, the social architect, the moral policeman will not, cannot admit. “Broken to pieces” is the fork in the road. “Broken to pieces” at the foot of the cross of Jesus is happiness: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Matt. 5:3). God’s true people are truly repentant people.

Repentant people look to God for mercy, because they know that they need a Savior, reaching out by faith for the nail-scarred hands of Jesus as their only hope for forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Regretful people look to self for relief, because they cannot trust anyone else for help, reaching out for any degree of escape from their misery through the lesser saviors of Run Away or Try Harder. Falling apart toward Jesus is forward; it is a homecoming.