At
the foot of the cross there is freedom.
At
the foot of the cross we are free
because we hear Jesus say,
“Father, forgive them,
they don’t know
what they are doing.”
At
the foot of the cross, we are free
to know ourselves to be truly seen
and
understood
by God in the person
of Jesus
At
the foot of cross we are free
to know ourselves to be frail and fallible.
At
the foot of the cross we are free
to know that we are guilty –
our fingerprints are on
the hammer and nails,
We are complicit in the sinful, broken mess
of a world
where
we nail one another to the cross.
We are the reason Jesus hung on the cross.
At
the foot of the cross, we are free
to know ourselves to be forgiven;
we know ourselves to
be loved with infinite love.
At
the foot of the cross we are free –
set free from guilt, shame, and fear
At
the foot of the cross we are free
to commend our spirits into the hands
of God
assured that God will not let
go.
At
the foot of the cross we are free
to love as Jesus loved us,
to love with
vulnerable, self-sacrificial abandon.
At the foot of the cross we are free
to forgive
as we have been forgiven.
I
encourage you to watch this video by Brene Brown who is a member of Christ
Church Cathedral in Houston:
Here
are a couple of quotes about vulnerability and love:
“To read the biblical narratives is to
encounter a God who is, first of all, love (1 John 4:8). Love involves a
willingness to put oneself at risk, and God is in fact vulnerable in love,
vulnerable even to great suffering. God’s self-revelation is Jesus Christ, and,
as readers encounter him in the biblical stories, he wanders with nowhere to
place his head, washes the feet of his disciples like a servant, and suffers
and dies on a cross–condemned by the authorities of his time, undergoing great
pain, “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with
infirmity” (Isaiah 53:3). Just this Jesus is the human face of God, not merely a
messenger or a prophet but God’s own self come as self-revelation to humankind.
If God becomes human in just this way, moreover, then that tells us something
of how we might seek our own fullest humanity–not in quests of power and wealth
and fame but in service, solidarity with the despised and rejected, and
willingness to be vulnerable in love.”
― William Placher, Narratives of a VulnerableGod
“There is no safe investment. To love at all
is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and
possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must
give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with
hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the
casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark,
motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become
unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at
least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where
you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is
Hell.
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
The
freedom to be vulnerable in love is key to any relationship and any community. It
is key to our being able to bear with one another when we disagree. Jesus sets
us free for that kind of love.
We
are freed to be less certain, less defensive; freed to be more open, more
vulnerable. We are freed to speak the truth about ourselves and then about one another in love.
Jesus
then said to those who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word,
you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will
make you free." So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
(John
8:31-32, 36)
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Bearing
with One Another When We Disagree
1.
Broken Love
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