Wordy Wednesday: broken Christians

I try to stay away from news I don’t want to know about, when at all possible, because I am evil and I want to be able to sleep through the night. But some things are just unavoidable and people, including my husband, insist on telling me about them even when I keep muttering that I really don’t want to know. This is one reason I hate Facebook more and more. The click baiting ensures that I never ever click on anything that I can’t immediately and clearly see because I’m tired of being shocked out of my mind and then traumatized and angry.

Anyway, as I was fleeing from news about all kinds of foul trouble, several thoughts clicked into place, realizations that I’m sure everyone in the world has had ahead of me, but I did have them and it’s my blog so hesh up.

Unlike so many others, I really hate that my body is so broken by having all these children. I am not that mother, not at all, that looks at her destroyed middle and then at her children and feels all weepy about “how it was all worth it”. I am not that mother that lets her children see her ugly stretch marks and then tells them about what a beautiful thing it was to give birth. I wish I was thin. I wish my stomach would lie down like it once did and I’m sad that it won’t ever. And yes, of course I don’t regret having so many children, gosh, sometimes I wish I could have just one more, just for fun, but I dislike immensely that my own flesh had to be utterly broken to give life to a bunch of other humans who are probably, let’s not kid ourselves, going to break my heart. And not in a schmultzy good way.

But, and here is the click of understanding, if Jesus, in this scenario, is the bridegroom, and he says all the time that he is, and his bride is the church, well, then, in this picture, the church is going to look broken and ugly. Of course, Jesus gave his own body to be broken to give life to us, to me. In the immediate horror of giving birth, looking at the cross is so helpful, just to get a clue, just to orient yourself around what the, I mean, what on earth is going on. But, in the day to day sorting out of our lives together, the image that scripture gives is of Christ and the Church, the Bride and the Groom, of marriage. And here’s something obnoxious about marriage, the man’s body doesn’t break in quite the same way. Sure, he gets old and his knees go bad, but his shape doesn’t completely alter in the course of bringing along life.

It’s just that I was thinking about the ugliness of the church, how much of it is so broken and ugly and how, even among Christians, we recoil in horror. The real sin, the incredible bad taste on occasion, the terrible things the church has sat around on, not doing anything about them. Just for some click bait of my own, I was trying to avoid reading about the Duggars but Matt insisted on telling me all about them. Here they are, really Christian, really trying to just go along with their lives, and then sin, ugly sin, is discovered to exist. The world recoils in horror at the ugliness, and there you are, that’s the church. We in the church are horrible ugly sinners, broken, foolish, terrible.

Sure, everyone outside the church is just as ugly, just as sinning, just as broken, but the church, the bride of Jesus, is supposed to be perfect and beautiful. Or so says the world. But that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus loves the church, loves his bride, whatever the world says about her. And he is not surprised and disgusted by her brokenness. In fact, if he was, we would think he was a bad husband, which he’s not. So there you are. In everything, the reflection is always back to Christ, who is beautiful, and perfect, who loves his bride, even though she is broken down and left bereft by the wayside. He picks her up and takes care of her.

In this way, it might be helpful for us Christians, as we walk ever forward in these dark and terrible times, to be more clear about our own ugliness, to admit it more brazenly. And then be more boldly grateful that Jesus clothes us, covers up the ugliness, takes it away, knowing that some day the body will be beautiful, like his. We weren’t ever supposed to be perfect, yet, and if we have said we are, then of course the world will be repulsed, because we are so obviously not.

And on that note I’m going to go sin so that grace can abound. Just kidding, I’m totally not going to sin. I mean, I am going to sin, but I’m going to try not to. Oh never mind. Have as good a day as you’re inclined to have without wrecking everyone else’s life. Pip pip. Oh, and here’s the latest picture of the baby robin.