Boiling Over
And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” Mark 3:5
With Anger – There is no such thing as gentle Jesus, meek and mild. That characterization of Jesus exists only in children’s rhymes and picture books. When you read the gospels, you find someone else – a man whose emotions were powerful weapons for combating evil. What’s amazing is that most of Jesus’ anger is directed, not at the lost, but at those who thought they were the chosen. That should give us pause. No man may presume upon the grace of God. No man may assume that grace once-experienced guarantees God’s obligation.
It’s the Sabbath. Jesus is in the synagogue. A man with a crippled hand needs healing. The religiously correct were there, doing nothing about this man’s need. They waited for Jesus to act in order that they might accuse Him of breaking a Sabbath-day rule. They were anxious to convict the healer for doing good, ignoring the need of the man and the purposes of God in their desire to prove themselves superior rule-keepers. Legalism knows no bounds when it comes to justified contempt.
Jesus looks over these “righteous” men. He does not feel pangs of sorrow for them. He does not weep at their hopeless misunderstanding of the character of God. He looks at them with anger! The Greek is met’ orges. The noun (orge) describes an outburst of wrath, an explosion of indignation. In this passage, Mark tells us that this volcanic energy is mixed with grief over the intractable resistance of the religiously right to the real truth of God’s heart. Zodhiates calls this an “utter abhorrence to sin but longing mixed with grief for those who live in it.” The rules mean nothing without the character behind them. In fact, they are worse than no rules at all because legalism blocks God’s compassion by diverting attention to the mechanics rather than the purpose. God comes to save, to heal, to restore. How He accomplishes that is far less important than the purpose for such actions. When men think that they can put God in the box of proper behavior, they so twist the truth that even the Son cannot contain His emotional explosion.
Do you see Jesus like this? Does His response catch you off guard because it disturbs your presumption about His holiness? Read the gospels again. You will see a man consumed with the righteousness of God, on fire for the truth, submitted entirely to the Father’s will regardless of social protocol. You will find a man who loves the unlovable to the depths of His being, a man who weeps over what we all agree are the useless, but who stands before death’s door and challenges Satan to battle. You will find a iron-willed leader with a touch so gentle that children seek His embrace. You will discover a man of intense sorrow, unbridled joy, exhausting perseverance and delicate intimacy. The startling fact is that Jesus is really human – the image-bearer of the Maker – accountable only to His heavenly authority.
Imagine what your life would be like if these kinds of emotional weapons, guided by the Spirit, were released in you. Why, you would be like Him. Scary, isn’t it?
