No thorough consideration of
sacrifice could be complete without an examination of the words of David from
the 51st Psalm. “The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God thou will not
despise.” The scriptures are full of men
and women who have been brought, by God’s design, to places of great
brokenness. The victory of the cross was
the product of the broken spirit and contrite heart that possessed Jesus and
impassioned Him to sacrifice His life for the world.
The survival nature wants nothing
to do with brokenness. Self never seeks
contrition of heart. The flesh does not
want to be humbled. However, brokenness
is necessary for true spiritual success and is something that the spiritual man
does desire. This desire was best
manifest in the three hours preceding the arrest of Jesus.
As the time of the crucifixion
approached, the humanity of Jesus was experiencing the tendency within Him to
survive and knew that He must come to a point of absolute submission. The chosen place for this battle for a
resolute mind was a garden… a garden called the “oil press”… that is,
Gethsemane. It was a place to be
broken. Here He would, like the olive
berry, be crushed and the oil of anointing be poured out empowering His
greatest Spiritual work… death.
The struggle for this mindset
that would cause him to lay down his life was not for the faint of heart. With Him were, by invitation, three of His
closest disciples… chosen for their prayer support in these final hours. Their own natures could not be victorious in
this time of eternal battle and sleep overtook their spirits in each of three,
hour long, vigils of prayer. These men
of choice could not have been aware of the tremendous decision being wrestled
with only a stone’s throw away. It was
the battle between time and eternity, heaven and hell, good and evil, God and
the Devil; a battle between the nature to survive and the desire to walk in the
Spirit and one side would win and the other would lose… it was a no holds
barred fight to the finish.
How true rang the words of Jesus
when at last he knew that the battle he fought to move with the Spirit was his
to fight and His alone… “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Brokenness is a lonely place; there may be
sympathizers and even empathizers, but there are no companions. None, that is, except the Spirit itself… the
comforter.
Whether it is Jesus in
Gethsemane, Jacob at the brook Jabok, Moses on his face in the tabernacle, or
H.G. Spafford looking into the cold dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean where his
four children had perished in a maritime accident, no one understands, except
the Spirit itself, the depths of loneliness and sorrow some events bring to our
lives. But out of these things rise
great spiritual milestones that become blessings to untold thousands and even
millions of people. Gethsemane brought
salvation, Jabok brought Israel, prostrate Moses brought the glory of God and
the cold waters of the Atlantic gave to all of us the words of a song… “When
peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say it
is well, it is well with my soul.”
Intimacy does not develop out of
the conversation of the crowd, but rather in the shared experience of two… the
spirit and you… this is the knowledge of God.
Even though it is painful to His child, God desires to get alone with us
as individuals. It is only in this
lonely, painful place that the spirit of brokenness can overwhelm us and bring
us to the place of greatest affinity to the Spirit. Jesus bears forever the scars of Calvary in
his hands, Jacob walked the remainder of his life with the limp received while
wrestling alone with the Angel of the Lord and we will bear the effects of true
brokenness all the days of our lives if we can take the opportunities of
misfortune and walk through them in the Spirit.
Could it have been that David had this in mind when he wrote the words
“Yea thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me.”
As “walking in the Spirit” is
contemplated it must be understood that while this walk is “in the newness of
life” because of the Spirit, there of necessity, had to be a kind of death
before a resurrection could take place.
Resurrection is a restoration to life after death; not just some kind of
better life to be attained. Death must
be experienced. Paul said, “that I may
know (be intimate with) him, and the power of his resurrection, and the
fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death. If by any means I might attain unto the
resurrection of the dead.” Philippians
3:10 &11
A visualization of Christ’s
resurrection can best illustrate the process that Paul is referring to. Jesus died.
He was buried. Being dead in the tomb the conditions for resurrection
were then in place. The resurrection is
accomplished by the moving of the Spirit into the tomb. The dead body of Christ is revived to life.
This is the pattern of our initial salvation as well as our continued growth in
the Spirit.
It is easy then, to see that our
survival nature is the main hindrance to walking in the Spirit. Our nature does not want us to die and yet
walking in the spirit is a walk of resurrection. Resurrection is contingent upon death. Simply, walking in the Spirit must be
preceded by our death to self… and that is against our nature to survive.
The spirit waits for the
opportunities that bring brokenness to us… for brokenness is in reality the
break down of our survival instinct. It
is the place where we realize that our survival is not the most important thing
and that there are bigger causes than self.
This is where the Spirit comes into the tomb and resurrects us with kingdom
purpose.
It may have been a traumatic
event when John was arrested and transported by ship to an isle named Patmos
and the aged Apostle may have felt that he would never leave the island
alive. But the Spirit in him was already
moving in anticipation as he arrived knowing that this old man, the last of the
twelve, would be in the loneliest place of his existence… the perfect place for
John to get “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”.
Thus we read two millennial later that Jesus is going to soon reveal himself
with power and glory. The book called Revelation tells us that he is,
and it exists because an old lonely man chose to walk in the Spirit instead of
sulk in despair nearly 2000 years ago.
While most often we look at the
perfect example that Jesus put before us in matters such as these… Gethsemane
for instance, our lives do not always play out in such perfect ways. The altruistic life of Christ provides a mark
to aim for in our Christian experience, and His unselfish sacrifices are to be
emulated. However, we do not always measure up to this ideal. What happens when we don’t?
When the child of God falls, can
a type of brokenness come forth to a positive end? Referencing a quote from David’s writing
began the consideration of brokenness, “The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God thou will not despise.” The author did not gain this insight from his
ability to follow perfectly the commands of God into a place of contrition and
humility. Instead, it was the exact
opposite of obedience that brought him to this place of understanding and
revelation. David found himself in a
place of great need, not of great accomplishment… and in that place of need he
cried for mercy for a self-inflicted tragedy brought upon him by selfishness…
his own selfishness. David did not reach
this pinnacle of spiritual insight by a Garden of Gethsemane approach, but by
committing the terrible sins of adultery and murder and then finding a place of
repentance. The 51st Psalm is
indeed, an insightful writing for the unfortunate people of God that fall
victim to their own poor choices.
This is where the awesome nature
of God and His incredible love for His people is demonstrated. Rather than condemning and laying guilt upon
guilt on David we see a compassionate and understanding God. After the needed rebuke and correction were
delivered, God lovingly brought his servant to a place of restoration and of
insight that may never had come had David not fallen so terribly.
David was broken by his own
missteps, while agonizing prayer and submission broke Jesus. The place of brokenness was the result of
both paths and while the consequences of the one are terribly painful and guilt
ridden they both bring the person to the place of contrition and
brokenness.
