Love, A Willingness To Be Broken For The Broken

​Most people have never heard of my favorite band.

Downhere

Technically, they are no longer a band. But once a band enters your heart, they can break up with themselves but they can never break up with you.

Downhere came into my life pretty near the same time I let God back into my life, back in the early 2000s. And really, quite unknown to the band, they sang me through a bit of a spiritual revival. And probably no song of theirs served that role more than their 2009 Christmas song, How Many Kings?

I will never forget hearing these words for the first time, words that land as powerfully today as they did back then. Not just words, but a series of very important questions to the listener.

To me.

How many kings stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
And how many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that is torn all apart?
How many Fathers gave up their Sons for me?

Even writing those words for you now, as I can hear the band in the background of my mind singing them, the words long to move me to tears.

Why?

The why is often different each time I listen, I suppose.

I have sons. So sometimes I ask myself, for whom in this world would I sit idly by and watch either of my sons crucified at the hands of religious extremists as a show of my love? Because Christmas can never forget that as God proudly watched Mary and Joseph hold his only begotten baby, God knew the day of the cross was coming as well.

Coming for us.

And then there is this reality that twice in the last several years I have gone to Honduras to serve with a non-profit. When you spend time in a place like Honduras, a place largely lacking almost all of the things I would consider comforts back home, you get a small glimpse into what it means for a king to voluntarily leave his throne to serve others.

But it is God's economy. It is God's desire. That we would always aim to be less in the grand scheme of things. That our greatest show of love comes from a longing to elevate others at the expense of ourselves.

I want to say that again.

In God's world, our greatest show of love flows from a heart that longs to elevate others at the expense of ourselves.

That is God's idea of romancing a broken world. A willingness - a desire even - to be broken FOR the broken.

So back to the tears.

Why?

Because so often that is not me. So often my desire is not to become less. It is not to become broken for the broken. It is not to step down from or stray to far away from my privileged throne and all that goes with it.

But in Christmas, God has made it quite painfully clear that IS the answer. That in a world torn all apart, the only answer to togetherness that will ever work is growing hearts that are more sacrificial than ambitious, more giving than receiving, more abandoning than pursuing.

When we ask God, just exactly how much do you want us to sacrifice in the name of this love of yours God, we are asking a God who gave up his home and his throne and his only son as a way of saying "I love you" to us.

When we ask God this, and when we sing this song, How Many Kings, it can be quite hard, at least for me, because my instincts and too often my answers don't line up with the answers God has given us through Christmas.

The good news, the encouragement of Christmas, is God doesn't expect us to be perfect. God does not expect us to be God. God is most interested in the direction of our hearts and not the perfection of them.

So on the way to Bethlehem, as you sing my favorite song in the world, maybe reflect on your direction.

Is my love pointed more to me or more to them? Is my heart aligned more with giving or receiving? Am I caught up in all that I can pursue or am I working to abandon some of the comforts in my life in the name of comforts for others?

Christmas didn't come to make us perfect, but it did come inviting us to change some directions.

I am forever grateful that the band Downhere came along at a time in my life when I was changing some directions. And that every time I hear their music, and especially this song, I'm invited to keep changing them.