The power of a broken heart
Reproach has broken my heart (Psalm 69:20).
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18).
Pilate brought the Lord Jesus out before the representatives of the nation of Israel on two occasions. He announced Jesus first with the words, “Behold the man!” and later with the words, “Behold your king!” (John 19:5 and 14). We were not there to see the Lord so shamefully and cruelly treated and paraded with a crown thorns and robes of mockery. But, by faith, we have an understanding that it was then that the Lord went through the experience of reproach breaking His heart. He heard so clearly the chants expressed in a harmony of hatred, “Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!” (John 19:15).
In John 12, Mary broke a box of precious and expensive spikenard and poured the contents on to the feet of Jesus and the house was filled with its fragrance. Christ’s broken- heartedness filled Calvary with the fragrance of forgiveness for enemies, love for the family, peace for the sinner, sacrifice for the world, poverty to make rich, victory in substitution and the power of a life laid down in love.
When the Lord Jesus began His work, He visited Nazareth, where He had been brought up. He announced His ministry, which would demonstrate His power as the Messiah King, the Servant of God, Son of Man and Son of God. Jesus would meet every need and never be confounded by the sorrow and sin He encountered in a needy world. In introducing this ministry, He did not speak first about healing deafness, blindness or lameness. He talked about healing the broken-hearted.
In Exodus 3 God said to Moses, “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them (vv. 7-8). He was speaking about coming down in the power of judgement to deliver a nation from slavery. He came down to “bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey” (v. 8).
At Calvary we see God coming down in the power of His love for the salvation of the world. This love was demonstrated by Christ being oppressed and knowing the sorrow of a broken heart. The suffering of Christ has saved us. And the One whose heart was broken has still the power to heal the broken-hearted. His love continues to reach out to a broken world. And it also reaches out to so many of the people of God who experience broken hearts. The reasons for this experience are manifold. It can be because of personal failure, dashed hopes, loneliness, rejection, family issues, divorce, ill-health and bereavement. These things can overwhelm us. It is difficult to see a broken heart, but the Lord sees. He has the power to come down in the sympathy of His grace to take us out of despair and to lift us up. In doing so, He transforms the broken-hearted into the tender-hearted (Ephesians 4:32).
