Charles Cockerell designed the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to reflect the classical architecture of Rome. With massive Ionic columns, the building appears ready to withstand the fiercest tempest  ever to spin off the grey North Sea.

In truth, the columns do nothing but add a classical façade to a building that is held up by a standard architectural design of stone and mortar. If the storm of the century did arrive in Oxford, the columns would go first, revealing a very strong and plain reality just behind the Ionic (and ironic) Greek surface.

Churches have been talking a lot about brokenness lately. “Authentic” as a fad. It can seem so healthy, as we come to terms with our humanity and the terrible weight that drags us down. But it also is addictive, as a gathering of the broken becomes a weepy, high school pity party. “I’m so broken” can become “I’m not responsible.”

(For an introduction to these thoughts, please view my blog from April 30th)

 Woe to those who crave fame: Do we possess the strength to be nothing?

Woe to us when...

...we daydream of greatness and call it being visionary.

...we long to be publicly affirmed in the superlative and call it God-confidence.

...we boast of opportunities and call it faith.

May we speak honestly about the spiritualization of ambition in the church?

Over fifteen years ago, I was slowly soaking in Christ's passion station by station in a desert prayer garden. Misunderstood, misrepresented, betrayed, beaten, rejected, mocked, ultimately murdered...in each moment of pain Jesus could have stopped the suffering with one word: "enough." But instead, Jesus assumed a posture of holy weakness.