Hardened Hearts
This might sound like kind of a strange dream, but I always loved the idea of playing on a church softball team. I have always thought it sounded cool to play church league softball. Well, this year my dream has become a reality. I am a member of a church league softball team and I even have my own cheering section (Allison & Sage).
Despite the fact that I've played baseball almost my entire life, and know how to handle a bat, I struggle with hitting in slow-pitch softball, which has been confusing me. A quick Google search today helped me realize that my swing approach for slow-pitch softball must be changed - I can't take a baseball approach. I've learned that contrary to baseball, I have to leave my bat lagging behind my hands, snap my wrists through the zone at the point of contact for extra bat speed, and aggressively transfer my weight to my front foot. I'm hopeful that making these changes will really turn my batting average around.
However, I will need practice. I'm going to take my bat and head to the batting cages until I get this figured out, because I want to be a productive player for the team and make my cheering section proud. The more and more swings I take in the cages, I will develop calluses on my hands. Calluses are simply dead skin that forms a hard protective surface due to repeated friction or pressure.
In this particular story in Mark 3, Jesus is dealing with religious men who opposed him due to their callused hearts. The laws these men had set up for themselves had caused their hearts to be hardened - literally callused over - and they were left with a hard, protective surface over their hearts which actually kept them from obeying God's law. Let's examine:
1) Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2) And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3) And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4) And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5) And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6) The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (Mark 3:1-6 ESV)
The gospel according to Mark presents Jesus as the "Suffering Servant," sent to suffer in the place of his people as he serves them in bringing them back into relationship with God. At this point in Mark's gospel, we have repeated run-ins between Jesus and the religious leaders at the time. The Pharisees are leaders who helped the Jews navigate their lives in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas under the Roman rule. In the pursuit of leading the people, the Pharisees had also become men who had created many laws about what made someone clean and unclean.
The early part of Jesus' ministry as depicted here in Mark shows Jesus as a man consistently in confrontation with the Pharisees over their religious laws and leadership. Jesus' teachings and actions are beginning to cause quite a stir, as he is provoking the Pharisees in an attempt to get them to see their own self-righteous ways.
In the synagogue on the Sabbath, Jesus is confronted with a tantalizing scenario. A man with a withered hand is there, and so are the Pharisees who it was are watching him "so that they might accuse him." The Pharisees cite the command that man could do no work on the Sabbath, and healing included work.
If Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath, he was considered to be doing work, and violating the law. Therefore, they were lurking in wait, hoping to catch him in a mistake. We can relate to this in today's internet age, where it seems like if someone even says the wrong word, they are immediately lambasted on social media. Think about John Travolta mispronouncing a name, or Steve Harvey's gaffe at the Miss Universe pageant. What is it about human nature that we love to catch one another in an error?
This was the hope of the Pharisees, to 'catch Jesus.' However, Jesus was wise, and incredibly aware of his surroundings at all times. Jesus was a man who knew how to number his steps and he knew when the eyes were on him. He was truly above reproach, and never gave the Pharisees or any of his critics even the slightest inch of dirt with which to accuse him. Jesus was above all accusations except false accusations.
Jesus knew the opportunity presented to him in the scene unfolding in this synagogue. So he calls the man, "Come here." Then, Jesus poses the question that silences his detractors:
And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. (Mark 3:4 ESV)
They were silent. What was more important, to heal the man, or obey the laws they had set up? Which action would be more in line with God's law?
The Pharisees silence showed their blindness. They did not see that what they had set up as their religious laws, their tradition, their understanding, did not adhere to the law of God. God commands to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). However, the Pharisees couldn't even answer when asked if they should do good or harm, save life or kill because to heal and obey God's law would contradict the man-made laws they had given so much weight to.
The picture of Jesus in verse 5 shows a man grappling with intense emotions of anger and grief.
And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. (Mark 3:5 ESV)
Jesus looked at them with anger because of their refusal to show mercy to the man. His anger reflects the justice of God upon the merciless. Jesus was also a man of deep compassion and sorrows. Truly his heart was grieved to watch the hardness of heart exhibited by the Pharisees. We see this picture of Jesus grief as he laments over Jerusalem in Luke 13
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! (Luke 13:34 ESV)
Jesus is the man of greatest compassion reflecting his Father's love - "who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4 ESV). Jesus here reveals God's heart - God is grieved at all those who reject him due to their hardness of heart!
The word for 'hardness' here in the text is the Greek word, pōrōsis. This word in the context conveys two ideas, 1) the Pharisees hearts were callused, deadened by their own laws and 2) their laws caused them to be blinded to the truth of God's law - to love their neighbor. Jesus is grieved because in their pursuit of self-righteousness, the Pharisees were ignoring the presence and power of God that was in their midst. In their desire to preserve the 'rest' of the Sabbath, the Pharisees were ignoring that the true rest found in Jesus Christ was among them.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 ESV)
Are we hardening our hearts, blinded to ways that we can give our burdens to Jesus and find rest?
Next, Jesus heals the man's hand, and immediately they hold counsel with the Herodians on how to destroy Jesus. The irony here is that the Pharisees, who dislike Roman rule, now are consipiring with the Roman rulers to wipe out their common enemy Jesus.
The Pharisees seek to conspire with their captors rather than to have liberty with the Savior. This is exactly what Paul says we do when we try to impose religious rules as a way to clean up to get to God:
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1 ESV)
Works-based righteousness puts us under a yoke of slavery, takes us captive. Faith in Jesus Christ sets us free. We find rest from our works of 'goodness' by resting in Jesus Christ!
Back to the man with the withered hand. In his interaction with Jesus he experiences the life-giving power of God through the gospel!
Jesus called the man -> The man responds in faith, "he stuck out his hand" -> He is restored
In Jesus we have the gift of God's grace, redemption through his blood - the forgiveness of our trespasses (Eph. 1:7) and we receive the righteousness to stand before the throne. Jesus initiates on our behalf by being born in the flesh, the same way that he initiates by calling the man with the withered hand to himself.
Truly, without Christ's intervention in our spiritual lives, our hearts would still be as hardened as the mans' hand would have remained withered.
Jesus risks himself for us. He did not fear the persecution of the Herodians and Pharisees, but rather Jesus went about his business of healing the man with the withered hand. In the same way, Jesus went to the cross so that he could bring about in us the most important healing of all - our restored relationship with God. Jesus laid down his life for our sake.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:11-15 ESV)
The man's hand being restored by Jesus' power is the exemplary of the way that the risen Christ restores our relationship with God the Father. The greatest problem we face is that we have sinned, our hearts do not seek for God. Our pursuit of lust, money, pride and self-righteousness has given us callused hearts and we need to be remade from the inside out if we are to turn and love God. Jesus is the only way for us to be reconciled, to be restored in our relationship to God.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19 ESV)
How do our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh?
Truly, salvation belongs to the LORD. We are saved by an act of God! The work Jesus does in our hearts was prophesied centuries before his life:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:25-27 ESV)
Jesus is the cure for our hardened hearts.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV)
It isn't by following rules that we get to God, but by receiving Christ by faith.
Our hearts are softened by the gift of God's grace and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit who regenerates us to joyfully walk in God's ways. No longer do we follow laws to "get" our righteousness, rather we receive Christ's righteousness by putting our faith in him! This allows us to be transformed from people whose hearts are callused by self-seeking ways into people who mercifully fulfill God's law to love others as ourselves.
God's grace enables us to go from people who live to serve ourselves to people who live serve others as ourselves.
Have you experienced this grace for yourself? Or are you still seeking to work your way to being 'okay?' Maybe you feel like a promotion, or a new relationship, or better health will be that thing that 'finally fixes you.' What is holding you back from placing your faith and trust in Jesus Christ? Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only way to have life with God - I urge you, be reconciled to God!
Perhaps you have experienced the goodness of God's grace for yourself, but now the cares of life have you realizing that your heart is becoming hardened. The life of God isn't as important to you as it once was. Serving yourself has become easier than serving others. Go to the foot of the cross and be reminded of how much God loves you! Jesus has purchased you with his blood that you may know him! Run to him who is your life! Find rest in him! Find empowerment from the Holy Spirit to walk in His ways!
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3 ESV)
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