Power in Weakness

Have you ever heard of Charles Atlas? He’s an American legend. If you have ever picked up a comic book, you will know why.

            Atlas was born Angelo Siciliano and emigrated to the United States in 1903 at the age of ten. As a teenager in Brooklyn, Angelo was weak, slight, and small for his age, and the other kids picked on him. You can understand why he wanted to transform himself.

            Apparently, he was inspired by two of his favorite sights in Brooklyn: a statue of Hercules at the Brooklyn Museum, and a lion at the zoo. Angelo was watching the lion stretch his bulging muscles one day. He noted that the lion was muscular without the use of barbells. Instead, the lion pitted his muscles against one another. In other words, Angelo accidentally discovered isometric and isotonic exercises – weight training measures where muscles are held still or tight while tense. An example would be like holding a push-up in the up position as long as possible or standing in a doorway and pushing against the frame.

            Since Angelo didn’t have money to buy a weight set, this was the only way he could build muscle. In a few years of doing these exercises, he had developed a 47-inch chest and a 32-inch waist, and lots of muscles.

            I was a 97-pound weakling myself. And the reason I remember Angelo, or Charles Atlas, is because I used to read comic books with his ads in them. For decades, comic books advertised Charles Atlas’ Dynamic Tension muscle-building system. They started with a comic strip featuring a scrawny kid on a beach date with his girlfriend who gets picked on by a bully who calls him skinny and shrimp and kicks sand in his face. All the 97-pound weaklings wanted to get this course and end the teasing.

            No one likes to feel weak or powerless. When faced with an overwhelming opposition, you feel defenseless, at the mercy of someone else. Weakness is regarded as undesirable in a culture that worships strength, power, and dominance. Weakness may be the result of size, gender, or age. Whatever the reason for it, we don’t want weakness. We despise weakness.

            That’s why Paul’s attitude is extremely surprising in 2 Corinthians. Instead of hiding his failures and weaknesses in the practice of his ministry, he boasts in them. Where most leaders make every effort to mask or hide their weaknesses, Paul reveals the blessing of being weak. 

             "Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on my of my anxiety for all the churches," (2 Corinthians 11:24-30)

            Here we have a resume of Paul’s missionary experiences…and it’s not good. I wondered if this list is exhaustive or only a representation of the afflictions Paul went through. He seems pretty specific about the five times he received 39 lashes. 

            In almost all of these instances, Paul was at the mercy of someone or something else. Someone was taking advantage of Paul’s weakness, defenselessness, or lack. Storms sank his ships; dangers were all around him. Yet he pressed on in his ministry and walk with Christ. 

            The secret of his persistence was his ability to accept weakness not as failure but as a reason to rest in Christ. As if external pressures weren’t enough to deal with, God gave Paul a physical issue. 

             "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong," (2 Cor. 12:7-10).            

            Paul received an important word from Jesus which he passed on to us: The power of Jesus is made perfect in weakness. And Paul deduced that to be weak then was better than being strong. How could this be? 

            We can only understand Paul’s attitude in the light of the cross. The paradox of the gospel that Paul proclaims reveals how power has been made most effective in and through the weakness of the cross. Jesus was crucified in weakness, but in that weakness, God demonstrated his power. I confess that this is not easy to understand – it is very strange. Yet God revealed his power to save humankind through the weakness of his Son dying on a cross.

            In drawing out this paradox, Paul is not saying that weakness is power. Rather, weakness becomes the place or the occasion for Christ to show his power, just as the weakness of the cross was the occasion for God to reveal his power in Jesus. In our moments of weakness, that is when God shows us that the power of Christ can work in us. 

            Contrary to our human tendency to despise our weakness, weakness is actually an opportunity for God to show himself in our lives. We can embrace weakness if it means Christ is glorified in us. 

            Charles Atlas may have been famous for transforming his weak body into a temple of flesh, but our weak, broken bodies are the dwelling place of Christ’s power. 

            “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions…” (1:3).

 

                                                AMEN