Glue isn’t pretty. Its white, clear or sickly beige and it sits in a bottle until someone needs it. But oh, when someone uses it, when its time has come—it spreads out and binds together all that has broken. It holds together paper and wood and metals and glass and forms a bond that creates new things—beautiful things.
Jesus wasn’t pretty. In fact, the other kids in the village probably teased him because of his scrawny frame and plain features. He was the kid who only got called in at the last minute if the team happened to be winning—the pity player that everyone suffers to have on their team but secretly wishes he could have been on someone else’s team (Isaiah 53:2-4).
He was the geek, the nerd, the schoolboy who studied hard, but never seemed to please his teachers—in fact, they hated it when he opened his mouth and started asking questions. He knew too much and they couldn’t figure out where he’d learned his stuff (and, oh, they didn’t like that a mere child knew more than they did—the grudge match between Jesus and the Pharisees started early on).
He enjoyed a brief, three-year stint of popularity when he went public with his purpose and backed his claims with miracles and wonders—a mere flash-in-the-pan span on history’s timeline.
But then his enemies found a way to finally get rid of the geeky boy who had caused so many problems—so many questions about motive, pomp and circumstance and purpose. And he suffered. Oh, how he suffered–rejection, shame, beatings, twisted words thrown back at him. His trusted friends abandoned him—too ashamed of ignominy by association to stay close enough to comfort.
As he hung upon the cross—broken, bleeding, separated from his source of strength and power—the crowds that once adored him suddenly despised him. They mocked him for his shameful end the way kids in a cafeteria clap and mock the kid who drops his tray and shatters the dishes (because humans tend to kick each other when we’re down).
But he became our glue. That act of spreading out his arms created a super-glue reaction in a dying, broken world—in MY dying, broken world. His act released a promise that we only need to reach out for to find healing for our wounds. He will put the broken pieces back together and create new things in us—things of beauty unimaginable to our eyes dulled with pain, sorrow and shame.
No matter what brokenness you suffer from, Jesus promises to glue you back together with his love.
I’m joining hundreds of other writers over at Lisa-Jo Baker’s for Five-Minute Friday. Join the fun and write for five minutes on today’s prompt: Glue.
