The story of humanity is a story of brokenness.
It’s not hard to see that there is brokenness everywhere, all around us. Broken relationships, broken hearts, broken bodies, broken social constructs, and broken power systems.
There is literally no realm or area of humanity untouched by brokenness. Brokenness is a reality of the universe we live in, and a reality of who we are.
The story of Jesus is a story of brokenness, too.
It’s a story about a man who didn’t deserve to be broken, being put to death by people who felt threatened by him. It’s a story about how a God who didn’t deserve to be broken took on flesh and allowed himself to be broken by his creation. And it’s a story about how when we are broken, we have an advocate who knows our brokenness, and what it’s like to be broken to the point of death.
But brokenness is only part of the the Jesus story.
After Jesus was put to death, God brought him back to life. New life bursting forth in the midst of death. New creation bursting forth in the middle of the old one. The clear and poignant message that brokenness is not the end of the story, and death doesn’t have the last word.
The resurrection of Jesus wasn’t just about him, or for him - it was about all of us, and for all of us. It was the start of something new, and the completion of something as old as the world. It was the ultimate act in the story of God restoring all things to himself, and making all things new. Resurrection is the point of the Jesus story.
And brokenness is only part of the story of humanity.
For as much brokenness as we see all around us, there is just as much restoration also. Some things die to make room for new things. Some things break only to be fixed and restored. Does it make brokenness any less tragic, or painful, or traumatic? Certainly not.
But it does give us hope. It gives us hope that our brokenness can find restoration too. It gives us hope that our restoration can expand beyond ourselves into the lives of others. That we might be part of something bigger than ourselves, and bigger than our own story.
For those of us who put our faith and trust in Jesus, we have the hope and the promise that the brokenness we experience isn’t the end of our story. And we have the hope and the promise that the brokenness we see in the world isn’t then last word in humanity’s story. We have the hope that our brokenness is not without purpose, and that we can take part in the restoration that God is bringing to the world every single day in millions of unexpected ways.