2 Corinthians 12:10, “For the sake of Christ, therefore, I am well pleased in weaknesses, mistreatments, calamities, persecutions and distress, for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Paul’s definition here of ‘weakness’ is broad, essentially embracing the total experience of mortality in the fallen world. ‘Weakness’ is the curse of Genesis 3, in all of its multivalent effects, borne in the ‘flesh’ of our personal experience.
We begin to see, then, why it is in ‘weakness’ that the power of Christ is brought to its perfect completion. The power of Christ—which is the power of God—is supremely displayed in the Crucified Christ (1 Cor.1:23-24) [Note that the Crucifixion cannot be recognized as “Power” apart from the Resurrection…And yet, the Resurrection declares not the Resurrection, but the Crucifixion as the apogee of divine Power.]
Now, what is borne in that Crucifixion and so transfigured—by the Resurrection—into the medium of supreme divine Power? The ‘Curse’ (Gal.3:18)….Yes, the totality of the effects of sin in the fallen world….sickness, sorrow, loss, shame, grief, distress, persecution, calamity, loss, weariness, intractable circumstances, the ‘vanity’ of life under the sun, precisely the ‘weakness’ of which Paul speaks — *this* is what Jesus bears in Himself on the cross in love as the supreme manifestation of the particular identity of God’s own Power. It is—therefore—this same weakness in us that also, as it is united to the ‘weakness’ of His cross, becomes His own Power…Indeed, becomes the very, actual, and immediate power of His cross, of His crucified self, present and active in the moment of our weakness.
The moment of His arch-weakness—which is supreme Power—touches upon and embraces every moment of weakness borne within itself, such that my weakness IS that weakness, IS that moment, IS the crucifixion of my Lord—which is the sowing of resurrection life and the working of God’s cosmos-redeeming power—present now, breaking in to this instant, or rather, embracing this instant in the eternal ‘now’ of itself (Heb. 9:14)….And all of this because He who is thus crucified in and under and as all the weakness of His Bride is Risen…
