The Fellowship of the Wounded

Personal Matters

Someone approached me recently saying; “The Lord said to me; ‘Speak to John, he’s a ‘wounded spirit’ too.’” This humble testimony was the foundation of our conversation and what I believe will prove to be a deepening fellowship in Christ. The reason is simple, those who carry wounds without malice are trustworthy before God and man (1 Cor 7:25). A few days later when praying with two young men images of broken ground kept appearing to my mind. I recalled Hosea’s call to repentance, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” (10:12). Then the Parable of the Sower came to mind; better named The Parable of the Soils. There are 4 types of soil, the trodden path which yields no fruit, the rocky ground whose fruit withers away under persecution, the thorn laden soil whose fruit is choked by worldliness and the good soil which produces 30, 60 and a 100 fold (Mark 4:1-9, 13-20). It is the good soil which is most deeply broken and which alone receives the seed of God’s Word in depth. This teaching is about how brokenness and wounding are the key to fruitfulness in our lives and secure character Christian fellowship.

All Mixed Up

In practice today most Christian congregations and individual lives are characterised by a chaotic mixture of the 4 types of earth in The Parable of the Soils. Some dimensions of the life of these churches/individuals are highly productive, other parts are fruitless, compromised and worldly. This terrible mixture leads to massive confusion in terms of Christian relationships, particularly in terms of leadership. There is no guarantee that the personal character of a highly gifted and effective prophet, evangelist or apostle is trustworthy. One particular scripture illuminates this unsafe situation in today’s Church.

“I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil 3:8,10). Paul is a completely trustworthy minister of Christ because unlike our generation he has never sought power without sufferings. The wounding of which the he frequently speaks is at the core of his C.V.[1] Genuine mutual trust flows from insight into the woundings another believer has endured for the sake of Christ. Power follows fellowship and not the other way around! This order is a share in Jesus’ own life.

The Wounded Healer

Christ walked in two states of life, humiliation and exaltation and the former is the foundation of the latter. It is because Jesus “emptied himself…and became obedient to death- even death on a cross” that the Father “highly exalted him”, seating him “at the right hand of power” (Matt 26:63; Phil 2:7-9). This pattern of power through brokenness and strength through wounding permeates all of Jesus’ life (cf. 2 Cor 12:9). Here is one example.

Before Jesus could do any mighty work he needed to be taken into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. When he is famished Satan tempts, ““If you are the Son of God command these stones to become loaves of bread.””  Christ refuses to eat loaves in the wilderness choosing rather to intensify his deprivations in obedience to God (Matt 4:1-4). Such submission concentrated the powerful presence of the Father within him, so when the time came to exercise power over bread Jesus effortlessly fed the 5,000 (John 14:30). Woundings intensify through the course of Christ’s life; abandoned by the crowds, betrayed by a friend, deserted by closest associates. The brokenness he willingly bears for us penetrates deeper and deeper to the point of death (Isa 53:5). The greatest wounding of all is not inflicted by men, but by God, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34 cf. 2 Cor 5:21). Total wounding releases total power.

Raised from the dead, the Lord appears to those who refused to share in his sufferings and identifies himself in a very specific way. “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.”” (Luke 24:39-40). A body of glory which also shows the wounds of death endured for us is absolutely trustworthy.  This is exactly how the mature image of Christ must come to us in the Church today.

Wounded Ground

1 Pet 2:24 is an important healing text, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” The context is the beatings endured by Christians servants unjustly treated by their masters, beatings which left real wounds (2:18-20). The power of these wounds to inflict rejection power is healed by faith in the one who endured unjust brutality for us (2:21-23). We have all been beaten, rejected and wounded in our spirits by the family of God. It is our scars which open up the way of power through the wisdom of the cross (1 Cor 1:24).

An old mentor taught me to trust the people God brought into my life, but he never taught me how to recognise them. The mode of recognition is both simple and profound– these people they will look like Jesus, wounded but with a presence of his glory. The more wounds such folk carry, without resentment, the more trustworthy they will prove to be. They are men and women the power of whose natural life has been broken by the discipline of the Father, they seek nothing from you, only to bless you in the difficult way of the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ (Phil 3:10). The multiplication of these sorts of relationships across the body of Christ is the prelude to a powerful manifestation of God’s kingdom.

Conclusion

The world of the cross is a strange one, the world of nails, whips, scars, wounds and blood does not look promising and powerful. But wounding carried in forgiving love is the foundation for the release of manifest resurrection power. When the individuals who comprise the wounded ground of the Church come together in holy fellowship God can trust such a humbled body with the power of his resurrected Word so 30, 60 and a 100 fold fruit will come. It will be just like Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30). A soil of consistent brokenness is the order of the day, personally and as the Church of God.