A Theology of Weakness

She gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger. - Luke 2:7

Just because Mary and Joseph were pushed around by Caesar’s census and just because they were poor and just because they were marginalized (literally giving birth on the margins of Bethlehem) doesn’t mean that God was not with them in a powerful, powerful way. They model for us what some have called a “theology of weakness.” Today, reflect on these words from an old saint on how we can meet God in unusual and significant ways in seasons of weakness.

A theology of weakness challenges us to look at weakness not as a worldly weakness that allows us to be manipulated by the powerful in society and in the church, but as a total and unconditional dependence on God that opens us to be true channels of the divine power that heals the wounds of humanity and renews the face of the earth. The theology of weakness claims power, God's power, the all-transforming power of love. Indeed a theology of weakness is a theology that shows a God weeping for the human race entangled in its power games and angry that these power games are so greedily used by so-called religious people. Indeed a theology of weakness is a theology that shows how God unmasks the power games of the world and the church by entering into history in complete powerlessness. But a theology of weakness wants, ultimately, to show that God offers us, human beings, the divine power to walk on the earth confidently with heads erect.

- Henri Nouwen