HARD HEARTS
Today's reading: Mark 3-4
"He looked around at them angrily, because he was deeply disturbed by their hard hearts..." Mark 3:5 NLT
As church folk, we tend to believe 'anger' has no place among us.
We squash it down. We push it away. We ignore it. We rename it. We disregard it. We stuff it.
But why?
Jesus exhibited anger.
God gave us the emotion.
Maybe we can understand its purpose if we look a little deeper at the instances where Jesus experienced anger.
Like in this morning's passage...
Jesus was angered at his enemies. Not in regards to what they had done, and they had done a lot.
He was not angered at them because of what they had failed to do, and there was a long list of those.
Jesus was angry about the fact that they had allowed their hearts to become hardened to others.
They were so hardened that they cared little for their fellow men. Their hard hearts had allowed them to focus more on the when, where and how rather than the who. They were at the point that they could not celebrate a healing because it went against their practices, policies and preferences.
And that made Jesus angry.
Two points I see in this...
1. Am I overlooking the needs of others when I myself become inconvenienced?
2. Might Jesus be angry at the condition of my heart?
