2 Corinthians 11:30 – If I must boast, I will boast of the things which concern my weaknesses.
Only half of the picture of Jesus is presented in much of what we teach, believe, and present as “the gospel". We’ve presented a Jesus who is not only some lightweight theologically, but also is a half man, a shadow of what it means to be whole.
Jesus is called “a man of sorrows, acquainted with my grief” and yet we’ve (I’ve) taught a message that says you can only be happy, only speak positively, only smile and fake it till you make it. That’s all well and good—it doesn’t work by the way—but it’s also a partial picture of Christ.
The Jesus who suffers and dies at the hands of humanity, the Jesus who sweats blood—begging to be let out of his path, the Jesus who weeps over lost friends (Lazarus), the Jesus who is “moved with compassion (empathy)”, the Jesus who presents us his vision of healing and wholeness with still-bleeding wounds in his hands and feet is tossed aside when we present only the “good half” of him in our theology.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should seek our own crucifixion to somehow match his suffering. But what I am saying is that we should seek our own wholeness in spite of our (ever strengthening) theologies of glory. Wholeness doesn’t always look the same as miraculous healing – though that can lead to wholeness. If we are to say that only the physically healed are whole, then the risen Jesus is not whole. His body still bears the marks of his suffering, and he wears them proudly. The marks of his suffering prove to us that there is no depth he won’t descend, no place he won’t go to lay hold of us, even when doing so means the loss of his own life.