March Madness, the basketball tournament, was cancelled six months ago. In every other way, March Madness trudges wearily on to this day. While we’ve begun to enjoy again the happy escape that live sports can bring, the madness of the pandemic is ever-present, picking away at the fabric of our substance and our souls. Culture and community as we know it, are at best, thread bare. At worst, they are unravelling at the seams. And it wears upon us all.
I feel weary from life being cancelled by a pandemic. I feel even more weary from people cancelling each other during the pandemic - a strange disease of its own. I have decision fatigue as our Governor changes paramaters for life, education and worship almost weekly. I have Zoom fatigue and homeschool-parent fatigue. I have homebody fatigue. In a normal year I would have done 3 international trips and numerous national trips. This year. Everything cancelled. I’m longing for a trip to break up the monotony.
Of course, there have been some beautiful things in this six months of March Madness. Our family have slowed down and enjoyed time together. We’ve done some satisfying house projects. Our dog thinks she is in dog heaven. She is never left home alone. Our church has been generous and resilient and we’ve experienced some gospel surprises that have come with some risks taken. Our leadership team has been brave and agile. Life rhythms have become more simplified. So, why is it then, that I feel exhausted at the end of every day?
I think it’s because life is more intense and uncertain than it has ever been. It feels intense because people’s opinions on everything are so strong and polarized. It feels uncertain because things seem to change almost daily, and generally for the worse. Our tendency to catastrophize is very strong as a nation. Conspiracy and end-of-the world theories abound. Leading in this environment requires resilience. You have to listen to many conflicting and convicted points of view, receive criticism without allowing it to destroy you, search the Scriptures, lean into team and prayer, make hard decisions and then hold your line. Basically, it requires strength. I suppose I’m tired from having to be strong when I feel weak.
Which is why I’ve been thinking about the weakness of Jesus a lot these six months of March Madness. The Son of God, the Eternal Creator, who never grew weary or weak, willingly embraced vulnerability to and dependence on His own creation. Jesus was born and raised in weakness. He nursed from a mother He created. He lived under the shadow of her teenage-pregnancy scandal. He and his parents fled as refugees to Egypt from a murderous, tyrant-king. And then there was the humble monotony of learning a language and a trade while waiting for his ministry to be launched. When it eventually arrived, it began with baptism, a dove and forty days of temptation in the wilderness. Very little fanfare. Weakness.
Hebrews 4:15 describes the why of Jesus' weakness. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus didn’t hold weakness at arms length. He embraced it in every way so that he could sympathize with us. Then Hebrews 5:2 talks about the beautiful power of Jesus’ weakness for us. “He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since He is clothed in weakness.” Because Jesus willingly clothed Himself in weakness, yet resisted sin, he doesn’t only sympathize with us in our weakness. He is able to help us gently in our ignorance and waywardness.
The various high priests in the Old testament were sinfully weak. They could sympathize with people’s weakness, but not really help them overcome it. Jesus was sinlessly weak. Therefore He is able to both sympathize and help us in our weakness. The word help here in the Greek is unique. It is the verb boetheian, which means to undergird or hold together. It is only used one other time in the New Testament, in Luke’s account of the Apostle Paul’s shipwreck in Acts 27. “When the sailors thought the ship was going to be torn apart by the storm, they passed supports (gk. boetheias) to undergird the ship.” (v 17) In other words, Jesus’ high priestly help undergirds us and holds us together when we are violently storm-tossed.
Dane Ortlund, in his book Gentle and Lowly, describes the beauty of Jesus’ gentleness like this. “Rather than dispensing grace to us from high, he gets down with us, puts his arm around us, he deals with us in the way that is just what we need. His gentle restraint simply flows from his tender heart for his people.”
This virtue of Jesus has brought me tangible strength in my weakness. I pray it does for you too.
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