Sweetly Broken

Sweetly Broken, Wholly Surrendered

At our church meetings we sing this chorus:

At the cross you beckon me

You draw me gently to my knees

I'm lost for words, so lost in love

I'm sweetly broken, wholly surrendered.

(Jeremy Riddle, Mercy/Vineyard Publishing)

At the cross you beckon me. The prophet Isaiah didn't have such a clear picture of the cross as I have. Yet in chapter 55 of his work he speaks as the Lord, beckoning me to come to him.

"Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

Isa. 55:1 (NIV)

In the midst of his suffering, laying there on the cross on the ground before it was raised, I imagine him imploring me to come and hear and understand and receive the gift he was paying for there. With intense compassionate eyes he speaks to me with a weak and raspy voice:

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Isa. 55:2 (NIV)

From the cross He says, "Come close and listen to what I am saying in this moment." The King James version says it like this:

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Isa. 55:3 (KJV)

He draws me gently to my knees. I crouch next to him and incline my ear closely to his parched, cracked and barely moving lips. His whispering words come through another prophet, the one Isaiah mentioned, David. I remember those words from the Psalms. It is the detailed covenant of faithful love which God made with David. I remember that Isaiah has stated that this covenant is now for everyone. So as I read it, I replace David's name with mine.:

I have found Fred, my servant;

with my sacred oil I have anointed him.

Psa. 89:20 (NIV)

I go on remembering the rest (psalm 89:21-37) with my name or appropriate pronoun inserted instead of David's. I'm lost for words, I'm lost in love; and in the moment, bending low to hear my suffering Savior's words, I'm sweetly broken and humbled.

But will I wholly surrender to these words; this covenant? Will I say yes to the desire of God and be his precious child. Jesus goes on to whisper through Isaiah,

See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,

a leader and commander of the peoples.

5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,

and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,

because of the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel,

for he has endowed you with splendor."

Isa. 55:4 through Isa. 55:5 (NIV)

This is so opposite of what I think of myself! Me, a commander of people and summoner of nations? He understands how foreign these ideas are to me for he goes on to speak through Isaiah:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,"

declares the LORD.

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