Weak and Welcome

WEAK

Men don’t often like to admit we’re weak. But dear brothers, we are. Regardless of whether you’re Jacob or Esau, savvy or stupid, rags or riches, sage or schmuck, Navy Seal or namby-pamby, all of us, men, are weak. Are you ok admitting that? Can you confess your weakness or do you bock, puff, posture yourself to try to stand taller than the bloke next to you? Jesus, the epitome of who and what a man is and ought to be, tells us “The meek shall inherit the earth.”

By weak, I mean meek. Lowly, humble, honest, forbearing. By weak, I mean disabled. Ouch, don’t say that. None of us are able, none of us are capable, in and of ourselves. As men, we want to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and there is a resident virtue here that rightly directed is honorable, and another time we can speak to this, but first and foremost, at our core, we must be weak, low, humble, unable. We must confess that we are finite, frail, fragile creatures, in and of ourselves we don’t have what it takes. If we were able, had what it takes, ‘all that and a bag of chips,’ then we wouldn’t need Jesus. He’s just a crutch for the weak, right? Or is He?

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. I myself, don’t want the omnipotent, all powerful Almighty God to oppose me. That’s not a fight I want to pick. So I must confess that I’m impotent. Yikes, did I just use that word? Yup, I’m impotent, I lack the power, the potency to live this life on my own. I need a power, a Person, beyond myself, One who knows my frame, created my frame, and desires to fill and animate my frame and bring an abundance of life that I can’t even begin to fathom. But it first begins, with admitting our weakness, our inability, our need. From a place of poverty we can begin to experience the riches of Christ’s Kingdom.

And I guess that is what it comes down to. I’m not King. Jesus is King. I’m a blade of grass, here today, gone tomorrow. I used to be a young, tan, tough, rafting guide. A couple decades later, I’m not so tough. And back then, I wasn’t that tough either. I just thought I was; I had an illusion of strength and glory that was fleeting. But Jesus, He is King Forever. He will come again, the Cloud Rider, with the heavenly hosts, to judge the living and the dead. Confessing I’m weak, and Christ is King, is where true manhood begins.

WELCOME

When we confess we are weak, we are welcome. Christ says, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden.” Jesus welcomes the weak. “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” In Christ’s Kingdom, the weak are welcome. Perhaps we fail to confess for fear that we won’t be welcome. We look around us and we see who wins, who gets the girl, who drives the luxury cars, lives in the fancy homes, you fill in your definition of the successful, good life. We see these men around us, these men on the big screens, on the covers of GQ, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, you pick your passion. To the victor go the spoils. We want the spoils, we want the world and we want it now. The world welcomes the winners. And yet not all that glitters is gold, as you and I both know.

In Christ’s Kingdom, looking through worldly lenses, we see an upside down kingdom. We witness the rejection of a refugee child born in a borrowed feeding trough. We sense the shame and obscurity of the backwoods upbringing of a blue collar nobody. We smell the sweat and fishy residue of the company this carpenter’s son kept. We hear the mocking and ridicule as the religious elite hurled insults and threatened blasphemy towards this Son of Man. We feel the threat of failure as friends betray and abandon this Man of Sorrows. We read the sign above the bloodied God-Man, “King of the Jews.” We weep as the Prince of Peace is buried in a borrowed grave.

And yet dear brothers, this isn’t the end of our story. And perhaps therein lies the mark of true manhood. Men must be able to look beyond that dark chasm of suffering, that trench of terror, and believe with the sages of old, that “this too shall pass.” If we cower and close the book, afraid to turn the next page, we will miss true beauty and delight. Men, we must be diligent and resilient, expecting God to turn tragedy into triumph, we must entrust God with the shrapnel of our lives, confident that suffering is redemptive, and a glorious hope, beyond the the veil of this shadowlands, will soon rise. It will hurt like hell, but death will one day be crushed under our feet. In Christ’s Kingdom, the Jesus of the Scars, rises from the dead and ascends into heaven, crushing all evil and vice. Christ the Cloud Rider will come again, and He welcomes you and me, promising victory over death to all who confess “Christ is King.”

This wild welcome is real. The happily ever after is not for the faint of heart. The temptation you and I face is to play the skeptic, the glutton, or the grump. The skeptic mocks, “It’s too good to be true.” The glutton gorges on the present: fat, happy, oblivious. The grump simply complains, saying it’s too hard and too far. But may we be men of bold heart, confessing our weakness, dependent on Christ’s strength, trusting in God’s promises. “He who called you is faithful.”