Divine Vulnerability
The Mystery of Putting On Immortality
The One who breathed the world into existence took his first breath.
Did he gasp?
The Word who spoke the world into existence couldn't speak and didn't know a word.
Did he cry?
The One who holds the universe together was being held by a mother.
Was he comforted?
The Light that gives life to all was born in the candlelight.
Was there enough light to see his face?
Even when we cannot breathe, when we cannot speak, when we do not know the words, when we cry, when we long for comfort, when we cannot see, right here is Divine Vulnerability… breathing in us, speaking to us, holding us, comforting us, seeing in us, and showing the Way through our dimly lit lives.
(Sit with those words. Re-read them. Stop and ponder the ones that read you. Part 2 can be read another day)
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Divine Vulnerability Part 2
To be vulnerable is to be capable of being wounded. We are. Birth, Life, and Death reveal this. How strange the Divine is capable of being wounded too! To identify with me and you?
This Divine Vulnerability is wounded to heal all wounds.
This Divine vulnerability was killed to raise all to life.
This Divine Vulnerability from first breath to death, reveals the process of what we are becoming, and what birth, life, and death, really are.
Will we yield to the Mystery?
It is Divine Vulnerability to become like us, oh deeper still I say, to become us! How close does it get to our real lives? God is with us in our journey through life and death.
Life and death then, let us see what it is in the Light.
He would gasp at first breath and at his final death, to reveal God’s face.
He would cry at first breath and at his final death, to heal the human race.
He was comforted in a body like ours, to show us God is with us, deeper still, in us!
What then is the face we becoming?
Can we be comforted when we feel forsaken? When he cried out on a cross was it only the wood holding him close? Was there Another holding his body? Was it a Love stronger than death? What do you make of such Divine Vulnerability? What is it making of you?
The One we thought could not die, would, showing us the Way.
The One we thought could not cry, would, revealing God’s compassion for all.
The One we thought could not live again, would, showing us we will too.
Would you believe it?
He breathed his last to reveal at last, we can take our first breath to be born again into a Life without end.
Here then is the great Mystery:
Through Divine Vulnerability we put on Immortality.
May you embrace the process of being held in Love, while learning to hold others the same Way. May you look into the Face that holds you to become the face you will be made like. Here then, we let go into Life Everlasting, holding us still, as we participate in Divine Vulnerability that puts on Immortality.
-PH
“For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.” - 1 Corinthians 15:53
“Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood born as a human in the world. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.” Hebrews 2:14-15
“You can have boldness to trust the mystery, to enter into the Immortal Life by the blood of Jesus, which is a new and living Way, which he made for us through his body, which would die to show us the Way to Life raised up and transform our understanding of death to reveal the process of putting on immortality.” - Hebrews 10:19, 20
“Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.” - Luke 23:46
May we too breathe and cry the same, to commit our life, death, and spirit to God with every breath until our final one. Then we are transformed by the Spirit to become the face we are becoming. Divine Vulnerability shows us the Way in Love.
