Luke 10:23-24

23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

As dark as the days in our world may seem sometimes when we turn on the news and hear of another mass shooting or a tornado that has taken many lives. It can cause us to be discouraged about the current state of our world. But our hope is not in this world. Our hope is the world to come because of the cross that opens the door to live beyond the grave an abundant life in time.  

The text above reminds us of this promise.  Brueggemann states, “that is what this enigmatic statement of Jesus finally leads to, that everything true and powerful and transformative about Jesus comes into play in the cross.”     

This is what the world at the time, and even now, saw as foolish and lacking real wisdom and power.  And yet, it is in the cross that the true wisdom and power of God is displayed. While the powerful, through capital punishment thought they were removing an inconvenience from the world. They in fact opened the world to the greatest gift of grace and a future of freedom, that was previously a good mystery now given by God. 

Luke 10:22

22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

As we confess that Jesus is God we are able to experience the power that only comes in weakness ands vulnerability. It is in this power of vulnerability, and not in kings or queens, or captains of industry that brings real change.  It is the hidden power of Christ that really moves mountains in our lives.  

Brueggemann reminds us, “More than that, we have learned—and keep needing to relearn—that the cross is not simply a one-time deal in the life of Jesus or of God. Rather the cross is the clue about how we live an alternative life in the world, an alternative life that is marked by risky innocence that has the power to heal, to create caring neighborhoods in the face of rapacious (greedy) markets, to evoke new possibilities in the face of despair, to enact new forms of liberation in the face of endless locks of oppression.”      

This blessed experience only comes when we take a risk where we empty ourselves out for those in need as Christ did on the cross.  This will not come by the power of kings, wise men, captains of industry or intellectual elites of our day.  This is for those who are true disciples, where this secret world comes only through costly grace that does make all things new.  

In this season of Lent let us move over to the world of vulnerability, that what is hidden to the world, but is able to make all things new.  To those of us whose eyes are blessed to see what you see!

“God of the cross, your power is hidden in a weakness that quietly overcomes the world. Open our eyes to see the power at work.  May we walk in it as we live out your alternative vision for the world. Amen.” Brueggemann   

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Brueggemann, Walter. A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent. Kentucky: Westminster John Know Press, 2017.