“And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”
Mark 3:5
Hardness of heart. I have heard the phrase since I became a Christian. Even before then, as I attended church, I heard the pastor mention this condition but really never understood what it looked like until this present era.
“Hardness” in Mark 3:5 is “porosis,” and to be honest, the definition made me chuckle. It is derived from the word “poroo.” Hardness means callousness, blindness, or stupidity. Stupidity. Stupid. How I have worked on preventing my child from calling someone or something stupid, but here we are, with Jesus being grieved at the Pharisees’ stupidity.
For context, it was the Sabbath and of course, the Pharisees were trying to catch Jesus in some scandalous act that they could use to discredit him. When he encountered a man with a withered hand, Jesus merely says, “stretch out your hand.” The man did so, and his hand was restored.
We could dive into the folly of adhering to a “law” that had been initially implemented for virtuous reasons but has been overly traditionalized to being ridiculous. I can think of the strict constructionist view of the Constitution, which if it were taken as it were written at the time, would prevent me, as a woman, from owning property or voting, and essentially making my life about being at the beck and call of my husband, silencing the voice that was divinely given to me by my Creator. As a woman, personally I don’t understand how a woman can adhere to that paradigm, but that is a discussion for another day.
What we are truly looking at here is that Jesus was grieved at the “stupidity” of the Pharisees. How grieved must His heart be now that he sees how we are acting toward one another.
Alexia Salvatierra mentioned something along these lines on the Ally Tour tonight: If it doesn’t smell like LOVE, it doesn’t smell like Jesus.
I John 4:11 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
If we are going to love God then we have got to love other people. This argument is easy for me when I am trying to convince someone that we are stewards of the whole world and that those people who are seeking asylum are there for us to love. This argument is easy when it is about giving equality and fighting for equality for those in the LGBTQ community, for men and women of color, for the disenfranchised and marginalized. This argument is easy for me, and truly, it ought to be for all of us.
This argument is so freaking hard when it is pointed toward those who are racist, homophobic, defenders of bigotry, misogyny, lies, bullying, deceit and manipulation. Do not get me wrong: I hate and am fully in the right to hate racism, homophobia, bigotry, misogyny, lying, bullying, deceitfulness and manipulativeness. But that person- That person who is struggling with these things for some reason I cannot know or comprehend- that person- was made by God. That person was made in love. That person was made to love and to be loved. And as much as it is the most difficult thing on the planet to do right now, we gotta dig deep and try to speak to each other in love. Even when that comes when the things we hold most dear are the things they fight hard to tear down.
We have got to old on to the truth. The truth will not break. It can be pressed on from every angle and the truth will hold up just fine. We know the truth is what authentic Jesus has shown us. That love is the job. Love is the reason. Love. If it doesn’t smell like love, it doesn’t smell like Jesus. Thank you Alexia for that nugget.
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