Over the weekend, I listened to a song by Nate Navarro called “Community Song”. The opening line says:

We’re a community of the broken, your love is changing us…

(To hear the rest, go download it, and the rest of that cd, on iTunes. It’s worth it)

So. I’m sitting and pondering this word: Broken. We use it a lot, “God just broke me this weekend”, “God really used that situation to break me over some things”. I’m not sure when it became commonplace in Christianese (I’ve only been around for 6 years), but we certainly love it. Then, when I was doing some reading for yesterday’s post, I came across this little gem in Luke’s Gospel:

“But Jesus looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written: ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.” Luke 20:17-18

That’s a pretty serious deal right there. The stone that Jesus is talking about is himself. He is the stone that was rejected by the religious elite of the day. And I had it underlined. That entire deal. And a lot of thoughts came flooding back to me from the last time I’d seen this.

By saying that we’ll be broken to pieces if we fall on the stone, Jesus gives that a positive connotation. It is good to be broken by falling on that stone. By picking Jesus. However, if you choose not to, the stone will fall on you, and you’ll be scattered like dust. All the Kings men (our brothers and sisters in Christ) can put us back together again if we’re in pieces. But. Have you ever tried to pick up a handful of dust and really make it into something? It doesn’t work.

It is beautiful to be broken. Christ tells us that. And it is a terrible thing to be shattered. In the end, that stone will destroy us. We can pick that and be put back together, or we can reject it and it will crush us beyond repair.

It is better to break.

Pick to fall, not to be fallen on.

-Stippick