Embodied Hopeනියැදිය

The Vulnerability of God

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. (vv. 1-2)

By becoming incarnate in Jesus, God makes himself vulnerable to every human experience, including pain and suffering. Nowhere is this vulnerability more on display than in the terrible events of Good Friday. Jesus’s flesh torn from being flogged. A twisted crown of thorns and a purple robe to mock him. His body stripped naked. The excruciating agony of a Roman cross. Beyond the physical pain, the brutal act of crucifixion was intended to publicly humiliate and strip a person of all dignity.

We live in a world where people continue to be violated and stripped of dignity, where pain and suffering are a daily reality. The abused child who suffers in silence. The teenage girl sold for sex. The man who is tortured for his faith. The woman who wakes up every morning with chronic pain. In his own suffering and humiliation, Jesus identifies with our suffering and says, “Enough!”

The torture Jesus endured is God’s emphatic “No” to all violence and suffering; and it’s God’s “Yes” to the inherent dignity of every human body. It’s the triumph of love over hatred, good over evil, forgiveness over sin, life over death. In his atoning sacrifice on the cross, Jesus absorbs all of our suffering and overcomes it. For truly, “by his wounds, we are healed.”

As you pray, thank God for his victory over sin and suffering on the cross and remember all who suffer in our world.