How To Be Loved at Your Worst

(Photo by Ryan LeBlanc)

“It is exactly in the worst part of us that Jesus wants us to find him, turn to him, and accept him.”

By Ryan LeBlanc

These days, when I look in the mirror, I’m not sure if my self-improvement work is paying off or if my eyesight is just getting worse.

Where and how we look at ourselves makes a difference.

During Lent, I want to look ahead to the results, and beyond the effort. But that’s not what Lent is for.

We look at Jesus on the cross in the season of Lent. When Christians look at the crucifix, we see the love of God and the hope of the Resurrection: life, peace and goodness forever.

But if we are to see the Resurrection through the Cross, we have to look directly at the Crucified Jesus, and that can be difficult to do. We have to chose to look directly at his love for us, because the suffering with which he loved us is hard to look at. We naturally tend to avoid and resist the ugliness of suffering.

This day in Lent, I’m confronted with an uncomfortable question. The same Jesus on the Cross is asking me: what is it within and about yourself that you are avoiding and resisting?

Really, Jesus? That’s what you’re asking me? That’s what your love looks like?

I don’t want to experience those things. I don’t want them to be there!

Let’s list off the things that at least someone who reads these words is avoiding about themselves: laziness, meanness, depression, loneliness, fear, sensitivity, hurting other people, being hurt by other people, poverty, fatigue, prejudice, brokenness, frustration, pettiness, hunger, struggle, stupidity… the list goes on and on. I’m on that list. I bet you are, too.

Come on, Jesus, it’s been a long week, why would you ask that about me? About us?

Jesus asks us about the weakest, poorest, ugliest part of me because that is where he wants to meet me.

It is exactly in the worst part of us that Jesus wants us to find him, turn to him, and accept him.

It is specifically in those parts of us that we resist and avoid that Jesus wants to show us the most love.

Believe me, I wish this wasn’t the truth. I wish I could avoid and resist my sin and my suffering  and that would make my it go away. But that is not the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The truth is, he loves us enough to take us by the hand and look directly at the ugliness of our own suffering, always patient and never forcing us, just so that his love for us can flood whatever we despise about ourselves.

That’s how much love there is in the cross. It’s too much.

But maybe, as we reflect on this truth, you and I can look at 1% of what we’re avoiding about ourselves. Just 1%, for now. And in that 1%, when we start to feel the urge to turn away, let’s invite Jesus to look with us. Let’s trust that his love is stronger, strong enough to heal us in that moment. And in the next moment, whatever that brings.

Our word “saviour” comes from a word that means “healer” – let’s let Jesus heal 1% of the worst of us right now.

Let’s pray:
Jesus, you are the God
who heals our souls.
Look right at us with your loving gaze,
and raise our suffering to new and joyful life.
Amen

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Ryan LeBlanc is a Teacher Chaplain at E.D. Feehan Catholic High School in Saskatoon and a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Holy Family.