responding to sin

“Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Come here.’ 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. 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. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” -Mark 3:1-6

Who responds this way? The Pharisees’ motive for going to the synagogue wasn’t to worship the Lord, it was to accuse him. Yet, Jesus was compassionate towards them. This text says Jesus was angry, but it defines the anger. This would be an example of righteous anger. His anger had to have been towards the sin itself against his perfect father, because it caused him not to be bitter towards these men, but to love them. He was grieved because their hearts were hard. Jesus knew his Father and the nature of sin, 1) that it offends and mocks the perfect God wrongly, and 2) that sin deceivingly steals joy and keeps us in a place of bondage where it grows to destroy and kill.

The Pharisees were out to destroy Jesus. The sadly ironic thing is that the very process of their man hunt was destroying themselves, not Christ.  Jesus’ response stemmed from:

1) Confidence in his identity in his father. His father said to him, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11) Because he was sure of his father’s love for him, he was free to love man. His identity was defined by his full acceptance by his father.

2) A love and compassion for these Pharisees. If you love someone, of course you will be saddened if you know they are being deceived. Jesus’ grieving displays his mercy towards these men, despite their evilness towards him.

 

easily influenced

I’ve been very slowly reading the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. He’s a psychologist that studies the unconscious mind, “thinking without thinking” is the sub-title to his book. He and others have done a variety of studies revealing the power of the unconscious part of our brain, as well as how much we are influenced without knowing it. This study was interesting to me:

A psychologist, John Bargh asked a number of students to take part in a “word-scramble” test. The students were asked to come into a classroom where they received a piece of paper with a list of five-word sets. They were told to create a grammatical four-word sentence as fast as they are able. An example would be:

1. sunlight makes temperature wrinkle raisins

The students were given 5 minutes to unscramble a series of word sets. When they were finished they were told to meet Bargh in the hallway where they would turn in the scramble and receive further instruction. This study was done with two different groups, one of the groups received negative words dispersed in the scrambles such as “aggressively”, “bold”, “rude”, “bother”, “disturb”, “intrude”, and “infringe”. The other group received words like, “respect”, “considerate”, “appreciate”, “patiently”, “polite”, and “courteous”. When the students were finished and would come to turn it into John Bargh, he was always intentionally in the middle of a conversation with someone. “Bargh wanted to learn whether the people who were primed with the polite words would take longer to interrupt the conversation than those primed with the rude words. He knew enough about the strange power of unconscious influence to feel that it would make a difference, but he thought the effect would be slight.” However, he was surprised  to find that almost all of the people primed to be rude interrupted him after 5 minutes, where as 82% of  people primed to be polite never interrupted at all.

The students coming in thought they were participating in a study about words, little did they know they were being influenced by the very words they were trying to de-scramble. There have been many other similar tests done that reveals we are very subtly influenced by things we see/hear/read.

More and more I’ve been seeing how fragile and impressionable we humans are. We are influenced more than we know by things around us. This is both scary and humbling. It’s scary to me because it makes me realize how much I’m not in control. I’m being influenced all day long without knowing it. My mind takes in information, processes it, and then subtly influences the way I respond in stressful situations, what I decide to do with my time, whether or not I’m going to respond graciously when someone hurts me, ect. It’s humbling because I realize how weak I am, how easy it is for me to lose sight of what is good and true. I am small. However, it is comforting to know that I am being held and kept by the hand of the living God.

It really does make sense though when you think about it. The Bible talks a lot about renewing our minds. Why? Because we need it.

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:13)

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot.” (Rom. 8:5-7)

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2)

We are given instruction to renew our minds because our minds’ default is wickedness and death. When I wake up in the morning I need to be reminded that my needs have been met, that I am fully forgiven, that I am fully loved, that I am fully known by Christ. If I don’t, chances are I will try to get my needs met by another means, and chances are, I will be left disappointed, frustrated, and empty every time.

God promises us that “his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lam. 3:22-23). This is part of his character, his love is steadfast and unceasing. His mercies are new every morning because we need them every morning-desperately! He doesn’t tire of giving us grace, he doesn’t hesitate to love us tenderly, and he doesn’t think twice about being patient towards us when we sin against him. This is because of what Christ did on the cross. So let us fill our minds every morning the knowledge of this great love and be influenced to love.