Is there something wrong with me?
Commentary
Object:
We are a very sensitive generation. While words that were once considered impolite and profane have become more commonplace on the one hand, a great many other words have fallen out of favor as "politically incorrect" on the other. We have worked hard as a culture to eliminate all language -- even all expressions and experiences -- that may be offensive to an individual or group.
A heightened sensitivity to those around us, of course, is a commendable and altogether Christian goal. At the same time, however, we may have observed that a cultural by-product of our hypersensitivity has been a certain kind of backward progress. Namely, rather than eliminating all hurtfulness we have instead bred a society of people who are simply hurt more easily and offended by less. Where an earlier, more rugged generation may have let many things roll off their backs, our generation seems to be injured easily and often. Accordingly, it may be that not all of the changes have been good.
One of the changes that has been good and worthwhile, of course, has come in the area of disabilities. Many elements of day-to-day life have been redesigned to assist folks with disabilities. Words that were part of many of our childhoods -- retarded, crippled, handicapped -- are practically gone from our public vocabulary. We have sought to find instead more sensitive terminology to identify people who are "otherly abled."
Several goals are at work in this refining of our language and mostly they are good. Yet in our effort to eliminate all stigmas and to empower every individual, we have become reluctant to say that any condition at all is undesirable or unfortunate.
It was a different world, of course, in the days of 2 Kings or the gospel of Mark. Leprosy was not only universally recognized as an undesirable condition, the diagnosis also carried with it social ostracism and a harsh label: "unclean." And this was not born out of a narrow-minded culture's fear or prejudice but rather the very ordinances of God (e.g., Leviticus 13:45-46).
At the same time, we see the mercy in it all. For the will of God was that everyone should be "clean." To that end, the mercy was not in pretending that the leprosy was acceptable but rather in protecting as many people as possible from it, being careful to diagnose it, and making every effort to cure it. And in two of this week's assigned texts, we see that the Lord was both willing and able to cleanse the "unclean."
2 Kings 5:1-14
Importance is a relative thing. From an early age we begin to develop a sense for what it feels like to be important or unimportant in any given setting. And we discover that the former feels rather good, while the latter can be pretty dispiriting.
Yet with a few years and a little perspective, we come to discover that importance is relative. The person who may appear to be of great importance at a given moment may not really have long-term significance.
Let us take, for example, the cast of characters reflected in these fourteen verses from 2 Kings 5. In the original historical context, clearly the two most important characters would have been the two kings involved. Everything is small potatoes compared to a monarch. Yet the kings of Syria and Israel prove to be just supporting cast in this story. There is power and authority in this episode, to be sure, but it doesn't belong to either of the kings.
Meanwhile, the person who is next in line of importance is Naaman himself. He is a commander in the Syrian army and apparently very close to the king. Yet all of his accomplishments, rank, and wealth cannot insulate him from disease, nor can they heal him of his affliction. Indeed, one gets the sense that, in his encounter with the prophet, he expected the trappings of his importance to be instrumental in the healing process. When the cure required humility, instead he initially turned on his heel. Perhaps he did not even want to be healed if he couldn't be self-important in the process. Perhaps he has many spiritual counterparts in our day!
We recognize Elisha's importance, of course. He is "the man of God" -- the agent of healing and the vessel of God's mighty power. If Naaman had been as perceptive as a later soldier (Matthew 8:5-10), he would have recognized the divine authority vested in Elisha, and he would have understood the wisdom of simply doing what the prophet said. Elisha, therefore, is the unmistakable star of this episode.
Yet we would do well to look beyond the prophet in evaluating the importance of various characters in this story. In the end, it may be that the two most important characters in the whole account are actually the most unlikely ones. Far from all elements of worldly power and significance, two anonymous servants are the characters on which the plot turns. First, there is the young servant girl who directs Naaman's wife to the man of God in Israel. Second, there is the exceedingly perceptive servant of Naaman who coaxes him back into the obedience that will heal him. Note well that if either of these two nameless nobodies had not spoken up, Naaman would not have been healed.
So we are reminded that importance is a relative thing. Nearly 3,000 years after all of these people lived and died, who emerges as having been truly significant? Not the kings. And Naaman's own importance is not only irrelevant to his healing, his self-importance was nearly an impediment to it. No, the truly important people were the two anonymous servants -- slaves might be the better term. It is with them in mind that we should go into each day, knowing that if we faithfully participate in God's work, that's where our real, long-term importance will be found.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
For some years now, there has been a bit of a movement in our culture -- and especially in schools -- toward non-competitive games. The thinking is that contests that result in winners and losers can be stressful for children, harmful to group dynamics, and ultimately damaging to an individual's self-esteem. Critics of this trend, on the other hand, argue that competitive games more nearly represent the reality of life than non-competitive games do, and so we do well to acquaint our children with the experience and its attendant challenges. Such winning and losing will help them learn how to succeed, as well as how to cope with failure.
The apostle Paul, whose biography suggests an ambitious, accomplished, and highly driven individual, was not shy about the reality of competition. Indeed, he seems to delight in it here in this passage. He even introduces the image into a context where we might not otherwise expect it to be a factor.
"Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete," he writes, "but only one receives the prize?" Well, yes, we know that and recognize that reality. What does that have to do with us? What is the relationship between those runners and our living of the Christian life?
At first blush, it seems as though Paul is suggesting an image of competition between Christians. We are the ones running the race (cf., 2 Timothy 4:7; Hebrews 12:1). Can it be, though, that only one of us will win some prize at the end? Are you and I jockeying for position against one another -- along with all of our other brothers and sisters around the globe -- knowing that there can be only one winner?
No, I don't think that is Paul's paradigm. In fact, I believe that he is actually exploring the contrasts between us and typical runners in a race. For example, he observes that "they do it to receive a perishable wreath." All of their training, preparation, and exertion is, in the end, for something so fleeting: a prize that withers and fades. Yet our experience is in contrast to that, for we look to receive a prize that is "imperishable," a glory and reward that are eternal.
Perhaps by implication, therefore, our running also differs from their running in terms of the competition. For at the end of the passage, Paul's concern is not that he would lose but that he "should not be disqualified." He is not racing against you and me in order to receive a prize that will belong to only one of us. The risk is not that any of us should be among the losers but rather that we might not be among the winners.
The point of considering the typical runners in a race is to see how they train and strive. Does our race, then, deserve less effort and focus, considering the stakes? The question is reminiscent of the Lord's observation concerning the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35:1-19). If their human ancestor merits such careful obedience from his descendants, how much more does the Lord deserve wholehearted allegiance from his people?
So we observe the athletes, not to borrow from them their spirit of competition, but to follow their examples of discipline, self-sacrifice, sense of direction, and single-mindedness of purpose. If we become spiritual versions of what they are physically, then we will be among the eternal winners in the end.
Mark 1:40-45
We have noted before the uncommon pace at which Mark's gospel moves. We have not turned the page from chapter 1 before we already see Jesus in the full activity of his healing ministry. Where Matthew and Luke gradually lead us through the prediction and the occasion of his birth, the ministry of John the Baptist, and the baptism and temptation of Jesus, Mark portrays a man who gets right to work, as it were. The Jesus of Mark's gospel is a man of action, moving decisively from one situation to the next, doing the powerful work of God.
In this particular instance, still in the very first chapter of Mark's account, Jesus' reputation is already so established that a leper comes to him with the confidence that "if you choose, you can make me clean." Given the hopelessness of the leper's situation in that time and place, this man's statement to Jesus is an astonishing declaration of faith.
His words to Jesus, incidentally, are exactly the point at which most of our prayers occur. We have the confidence about what he is able to do, but we are not always certain about what he will choose to do. Perhaps there are a few difficult situations we encounter where our faith struggles even to imagine that he is able to make a change. Those are the situations in which we might ponder the Lord's question to Sarah: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" (Genesis 18:14). In most cases, however, we are sure that he can do it if he chooses, and this was the halfway certainty of the leper in Mark 1.
In response, Mark reports that Jesus was "moved with pity." This pity, sometimes translated "compassion," is the same motivating force that characterizes several important characters in Jesus' parables: the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), the forgiving master (Matthew 18:27), and the prodigal's father (Luke 15:20). And it characterizes Jesus himself along the way, moving him to heal a needy crowd (Matthew 14:14), to feed the hungry multitude (Matthew 15:32), and to raise a grieving woman's son to life (Luke 7:13). Here in our passage, it moves Jesus to heal the leper. We will explore this internal motivation in more detail below.
The healing, as it turns out, is not the end of the matter for the former leper. He has two follow-up instructions from Jesus. First, he is to "say nothing to anyone." And second, he is to "show (himself) to the priest, and offer for (his) cleansing what Moses commanded."
The first instruction, of course, is part of the larger "Messianic secret" pattern that New Testament scholars have contemplated for decades. That is a subject unto itself. And while Mark offers no explanation for Jesus' instructions, he is quick to note that the healed man disobeys those instructions with gusto: "He went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word." There is a happily uncontainable quality about a testimony and so we can hardly condemn this man for his effervescence.
The second instruction is for the man to comply with a certain requirement of the Old Testament law (see Leviticus 14:1-32). Both the diagnosis and prescription for leprosy originated with the priests, and so the confirmation of a cure must come from the priests as well. Also, inasmuch as leprosy was part of the larger theme of ritual cleanliness and uncleanliness, it was a practical necessity for the leper to be declared clean by a priest. And too, we sense in this instruction from Jesus the same attitude that, on the occasion of his baptism, sought "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15).
Finally, just as the reputation about Jesus had spread sufficiently at the beginning of the passage that this leper knew to come to Jesus, that renown had expanded exponentially by the end of the passage. Now "Jesus could no longer go into a town openly," and "people came to him from every quarter."
Application
Leprosy is not the close-to-home plague in our day that it was in the ancient world of the Bible. Our prayer lists are not filled with people who have been diagnosed with it, or families grieving the loss of someone taken from them by it. Yet the biblical testimony concerning leprosy may still speak to us today.
Let us take the ancient physical malady and turn it into a metaphor for the universal and spiritual one: sin. Leprosy and sin, after all, share some features in common. A little spot of either should not be ignored, for it will almost certainly grow. Left unchecked, it will destroy your life. If the afflicted person is careless, his condition will spread harmfully to others. And "unclean" is an apt description of the problem.
In our sensitive day, we hesitate to call actions "sins" or refer to any people as "sinners." But in his mercy, God is not shy about diagnosing, for his eagerness is not that we should all feel good about our uncleanness but rather that we should be cleansed. The gospel truth is that he is willing and able to cleanse us.
First we must admit the need. Then we must come to Jesus just as the leper in Mark did. "If you choose, you can make me clean" is a pretty good sinner's prayer. Then we must adopt the humility that was so difficult for Naaman, accepting the cure that is all grace and no merit.
Alternative Applications
Mark 1:40-45. "Moving Like Jesus" (part 1). We noted above that, in the account of Jesus healing the leper, Mark identifies a certain motivation within Jesus. He was, according to the narrator, "moved with pity." Now, the very notion of Jesus being "moved" will likely elicit very different reactions from different people.
For one individual, the image is an unnerving one. It suggests a Jesus who is more emotional and more human than we may fit within our comfort zone. Perhaps we would prefer a sort of divine constancy that does not seem to square with him being "moved" on occasion.
For a different individual, however, this image is a cherished and celebrated one. The fact that Jesus was moved shows how accessible he is. He is not distant and detached. He does not heal the leper because he is a kind of miracle-working robot. No, he heals the leper because he is a hearty savior!
This witness concerning Jesus is not an anomaly. We cannot chalk it up to some idiosyncracy in Mark. For as we mentioned above, Matthew and Luke use the same Greek word in reference to Jesus and his being moved to compassionate action. Meanwhile, John's gospel shows him weeping at Lazarus' tomb (11:35). And the writer of Hebrews famously declares about him, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (4:15).
Of course, this is at least a part of the truth of the incarnation. The good news is not that "the word became automaton" but that "the word became flesh." When we see him sweating or sleeping or weeping, therefore, we rejoice in the grandeur of God becoming human and dwelling among us.
Beyond that, though, there is also this possibility: that Jesus being moved is not him being like us, but rather when you and I are moved it is us being like him. In other words, perhaps this is not originally or exclusively a human attribute at all. Rather, perhaps it is a divine attribute, and we experience it to the extent that we are made in his image.
The modern mind writes off much of this emotional language in the Old Testament -- God as angry, jealous, compassionate, regretful -- as primitive anthropomorphisms. Perhaps not, though. Perhaps these brushstrokes are not ancient human beings making God in their image but rather profound evidence that we are made in his.
So we celebrate that Jesus was "moved with pity." So may we be too!
Mark 1:40-45. "Moving Like Jesus" (part 2). I want to pursue the notion explored above just a bit further. I am developing it here as a separate piece, however, because I do not regard it as an additional point in the earlier sermon idea but rather as a worthy sermon idea by itself.
When Mark reports that Jesus was "moved with pity," we recognize that as being an experience on the emotional side of the ledger. That is to say, Mark is not reporting something Jesus thought or believed but something Jesus felt. It was affective and when we see it, we recognize it. We relate to it.
That brings us to the great WWJD moment of application. We are familiar with his example for us when it comes to facing temptation, dealing with adversaries, reaching out to outcasts, and living in communion with God. Perhaps we have not fully embraced his example when it comes to responding properly to strong emotions.
When Mark says that Jesus was "moved with pity," he is giving us a priceless glimpse into a teaching moment. What do we do with our strong emotions? In Jesus, we see emotion become motion. He did not wallow and he did not suppress; he acted. Specifically, he acted on someone else's behalf. That is exemplary and it gives us a new insight into what would Jesus do -- with my emotions.
A heightened sensitivity to those around us, of course, is a commendable and altogether Christian goal. At the same time, however, we may have observed that a cultural by-product of our hypersensitivity has been a certain kind of backward progress. Namely, rather than eliminating all hurtfulness we have instead bred a society of people who are simply hurt more easily and offended by less. Where an earlier, more rugged generation may have let many things roll off their backs, our generation seems to be injured easily and often. Accordingly, it may be that not all of the changes have been good.
One of the changes that has been good and worthwhile, of course, has come in the area of disabilities. Many elements of day-to-day life have been redesigned to assist folks with disabilities. Words that were part of many of our childhoods -- retarded, crippled, handicapped -- are practically gone from our public vocabulary. We have sought to find instead more sensitive terminology to identify people who are "otherly abled."
Several goals are at work in this refining of our language and mostly they are good. Yet in our effort to eliminate all stigmas and to empower every individual, we have become reluctant to say that any condition at all is undesirable or unfortunate.
It was a different world, of course, in the days of 2 Kings or the gospel of Mark. Leprosy was not only universally recognized as an undesirable condition, the diagnosis also carried with it social ostracism and a harsh label: "unclean." And this was not born out of a narrow-minded culture's fear or prejudice but rather the very ordinances of God (e.g., Leviticus 13:45-46).
At the same time, we see the mercy in it all. For the will of God was that everyone should be "clean." To that end, the mercy was not in pretending that the leprosy was acceptable but rather in protecting as many people as possible from it, being careful to diagnose it, and making every effort to cure it. And in two of this week's assigned texts, we see that the Lord was both willing and able to cleanse the "unclean."
2 Kings 5:1-14
Importance is a relative thing. From an early age we begin to develop a sense for what it feels like to be important or unimportant in any given setting. And we discover that the former feels rather good, while the latter can be pretty dispiriting.
Yet with a few years and a little perspective, we come to discover that importance is relative. The person who may appear to be of great importance at a given moment may not really have long-term significance.
Let us take, for example, the cast of characters reflected in these fourteen verses from 2 Kings 5. In the original historical context, clearly the two most important characters would have been the two kings involved. Everything is small potatoes compared to a monarch. Yet the kings of Syria and Israel prove to be just supporting cast in this story. There is power and authority in this episode, to be sure, but it doesn't belong to either of the kings.
Meanwhile, the person who is next in line of importance is Naaman himself. He is a commander in the Syrian army and apparently very close to the king. Yet all of his accomplishments, rank, and wealth cannot insulate him from disease, nor can they heal him of his affliction. Indeed, one gets the sense that, in his encounter with the prophet, he expected the trappings of his importance to be instrumental in the healing process. When the cure required humility, instead he initially turned on his heel. Perhaps he did not even want to be healed if he couldn't be self-important in the process. Perhaps he has many spiritual counterparts in our day!
We recognize Elisha's importance, of course. He is "the man of God" -- the agent of healing and the vessel of God's mighty power. If Naaman had been as perceptive as a later soldier (Matthew 8:5-10), he would have recognized the divine authority vested in Elisha, and he would have understood the wisdom of simply doing what the prophet said. Elisha, therefore, is the unmistakable star of this episode.
Yet we would do well to look beyond the prophet in evaluating the importance of various characters in this story. In the end, it may be that the two most important characters in the whole account are actually the most unlikely ones. Far from all elements of worldly power and significance, two anonymous servants are the characters on which the plot turns. First, there is the young servant girl who directs Naaman's wife to the man of God in Israel. Second, there is the exceedingly perceptive servant of Naaman who coaxes him back into the obedience that will heal him. Note well that if either of these two nameless nobodies had not spoken up, Naaman would not have been healed.
So we are reminded that importance is a relative thing. Nearly 3,000 years after all of these people lived and died, who emerges as having been truly significant? Not the kings. And Naaman's own importance is not only irrelevant to his healing, his self-importance was nearly an impediment to it. No, the truly important people were the two anonymous servants -- slaves might be the better term. It is with them in mind that we should go into each day, knowing that if we faithfully participate in God's work, that's where our real, long-term importance will be found.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
For some years now, there has been a bit of a movement in our culture -- and especially in schools -- toward non-competitive games. The thinking is that contests that result in winners and losers can be stressful for children, harmful to group dynamics, and ultimately damaging to an individual's self-esteem. Critics of this trend, on the other hand, argue that competitive games more nearly represent the reality of life than non-competitive games do, and so we do well to acquaint our children with the experience and its attendant challenges. Such winning and losing will help them learn how to succeed, as well as how to cope with failure.
The apostle Paul, whose biography suggests an ambitious, accomplished, and highly driven individual, was not shy about the reality of competition. Indeed, he seems to delight in it here in this passage. He even introduces the image into a context where we might not otherwise expect it to be a factor.
"Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete," he writes, "but only one receives the prize?" Well, yes, we know that and recognize that reality. What does that have to do with us? What is the relationship between those runners and our living of the Christian life?
At first blush, it seems as though Paul is suggesting an image of competition between Christians. We are the ones running the race (cf., 2 Timothy 4:7; Hebrews 12:1). Can it be, though, that only one of us will win some prize at the end? Are you and I jockeying for position against one another -- along with all of our other brothers and sisters around the globe -- knowing that there can be only one winner?
No, I don't think that is Paul's paradigm. In fact, I believe that he is actually exploring the contrasts between us and typical runners in a race. For example, he observes that "they do it to receive a perishable wreath." All of their training, preparation, and exertion is, in the end, for something so fleeting: a prize that withers and fades. Yet our experience is in contrast to that, for we look to receive a prize that is "imperishable," a glory and reward that are eternal.
Perhaps by implication, therefore, our running also differs from their running in terms of the competition. For at the end of the passage, Paul's concern is not that he would lose but that he "should not be disqualified." He is not racing against you and me in order to receive a prize that will belong to only one of us. The risk is not that any of us should be among the losers but rather that we might not be among the winners.
The point of considering the typical runners in a race is to see how they train and strive. Does our race, then, deserve less effort and focus, considering the stakes? The question is reminiscent of the Lord's observation concerning the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35:1-19). If their human ancestor merits such careful obedience from his descendants, how much more does the Lord deserve wholehearted allegiance from his people?
So we observe the athletes, not to borrow from them their spirit of competition, but to follow their examples of discipline, self-sacrifice, sense of direction, and single-mindedness of purpose. If we become spiritual versions of what they are physically, then we will be among the eternal winners in the end.
Mark 1:40-45
We have noted before the uncommon pace at which Mark's gospel moves. We have not turned the page from chapter 1 before we already see Jesus in the full activity of his healing ministry. Where Matthew and Luke gradually lead us through the prediction and the occasion of his birth, the ministry of John the Baptist, and the baptism and temptation of Jesus, Mark portrays a man who gets right to work, as it were. The Jesus of Mark's gospel is a man of action, moving decisively from one situation to the next, doing the powerful work of God.
In this particular instance, still in the very first chapter of Mark's account, Jesus' reputation is already so established that a leper comes to him with the confidence that "if you choose, you can make me clean." Given the hopelessness of the leper's situation in that time and place, this man's statement to Jesus is an astonishing declaration of faith.
His words to Jesus, incidentally, are exactly the point at which most of our prayers occur. We have the confidence about what he is able to do, but we are not always certain about what he will choose to do. Perhaps there are a few difficult situations we encounter where our faith struggles even to imagine that he is able to make a change. Those are the situations in which we might ponder the Lord's question to Sarah: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" (Genesis 18:14). In most cases, however, we are sure that he can do it if he chooses, and this was the halfway certainty of the leper in Mark 1.
In response, Mark reports that Jesus was "moved with pity." This pity, sometimes translated "compassion," is the same motivating force that characterizes several important characters in Jesus' parables: the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), the forgiving master (Matthew 18:27), and the prodigal's father (Luke 15:20). And it characterizes Jesus himself along the way, moving him to heal a needy crowd (Matthew 14:14), to feed the hungry multitude (Matthew 15:32), and to raise a grieving woman's son to life (Luke 7:13). Here in our passage, it moves Jesus to heal the leper. We will explore this internal motivation in more detail below.
The healing, as it turns out, is not the end of the matter for the former leper. He has two follow-up instructions from Jesus. First, he is to "say nothing to anyone." And second, he is to "show (himself) to the priest, and offer for (his) cleansing what Moses commanded."
The first instruction, of course, is part of the larger "Messianic secret" pattern that New Testament scholars have contemplated for decades. That is a subject unto itself. And while Mark offers no explanation for Jesus' instructions, he is quick to note that the healed man disobeys those instructions with gusto: "He went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word." There is a happily uncontainable quality about a testimony and so we can hardly condemn this man for his effervescence.
The second instruction is for the man to comply with a certain requirement of the Old Testament law (see Leviticus 14:1-32). Both the diagnosis and prescription for leprosy originated with the priests, and so the confirmation of a cure must come from the priests as well. Also, inasmuch as leprosy was part of the larger theme of ritual cleanliness and uncleanliness, it was a practical necessity for the leper to be declared clean by a priest. And too, we sense in this instruction from Jesus the same attitude that, on the occasion of his baptism, sought "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15).
Finally, just as the reputation about Jesus had spread sufficiently at the beginning of the passage that this leper knew to come to Jesus, that renown had expanded exponentially by the end of the passage. Now "Jesus could no longer go into a town openly," and "people came to him from every quarter."
Application
Leprosy is not the close-to-home plague in our day that it was in the ancient world of the Bible. Our prayer lists are not filled with people who have been diagnosed with it, or families grieving the loss of someone taken from them by it. Yet the biblical testimony concerning leprosy may still speak to us today.
Let us take the ancient physical malady and turn it into a metaphor for the universal and spiritual one: sin. Leprosy and sin, after all, share some features in common. A little spot of either should not be ignored, for it will almost certainly grow. Left unchecked, it will destroy your life. If the afflicted person is careless, his condition will spread harmfully to others. And "unclean" is an apt description of the problem.
In our sensitive day, we hesitate to call actions "sins" or refer to any people as "sinners." But in his mercy, God is not shy about diagnosing, for his eagerness is not that we should all feel good about our uncleanness but rather that we should be cleansed. The gospel truth is that he is willing and able to cleanse us.
First we must admit the need. Then we must come to Jesus just as the leper in Mark did. "If you choose, you can make me clean" is a pretty good sinner's prayer. Then we must adopt the humility that was so difficult for Naaman, accepting the cure that is all grace and no merit.
Alternative Applications
Mark 1:40-45. "Moving Like Jesus" (part 1). We noted above that, in the account of Jesus healing the leper, Mark identifies a certain motivation within Jesus. He was, according to the narrator, "moved with pity." Now, the very notion of Jesus being "moved" will likely elicit very different reactions from different people.
For one individual, the image is an unnerving one. It suggests a Jesus who is more emotional and more human than we may fit within our comfort zone. Perhaps we would prefer a sort of divine constancy that does not seem to square with him being "moved" on occasion.
For a different individual, however, this image is a cherished and celebrated one. The fact that Jesus was moved shows how accessible he is. He is not distant and detached. He does not heal the leper because he is a kind of miracle-working robot. No, he heals the leper because he is a hearty savior!
This witness concerning Jesus is not an anomaly. We cannot chalk it up to some idiosyncracy in Mark. For as we mentioned above, Matthew and Luke use the same Greek word in reference to Jesus and his being moved to compassionate action. Meanwhile, John's gospel shows him weeping at Lazarus' tomb (11:35). And the writer of Hebrews famously declares about him, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (4:15).
Of course, this is at least a part of the truth of the incarnation. The good news is not that "the word became automaton" but that "the word became flesh." When we see him sweating or sleeping or weeping, therefore, we rejoice in the grandeur of God becoming human and dwelling among us.
Beyond that, though, there is also this possibility: that Jesus being moved is not him being like us, but rather when you and I are moved it is us being like him. In other words, perhaps this is not originally or exclusively a human attribute at all. Rather, perhaps it is a divine attribute, and we experience it to the extent that we are made in his image.
The modern mind writes off much of this emotional language in the Old Testament -- God as angry, jealous, compassionate, regretful -- as primitive anthropomorphisms. Perhaps not, though. Perhaps these brushstrokes are not ancient human beings making God in their image but rather profound evidence that we are made in his.
So we celebrate that Jesus was "moved with pity." So may we be too!
Mark 1:40-45. "Moving Like Jesus" (part 2). I want to pursue the notion explored above just a bit further. I am developing it here as a separate piece, however, because I do not regard it as an additional point in the earlier sermon idea but rather as a worthy sermon idea by itself.
When Mark reports that Jesus was "moved with pity," we recognize that as being an experience on the emotional side of the ledger. That is to say, Mark is not reporting something Jesus thought or believed but something Jesus felt. It was affective and when we see it, we recognize it. We relate to it.
That brings us to the great WWJD moment of application. We are familiar with his example for us when it comes to facing temptation, dealing with adversaries, reaching out to outcasts, and living in communion with God. Perhaps we have not fully embraced his example when it comes to responding properly to strong emotions.
When Mark says that Jesus was "moved with pity," he is giving us a priceless glimpse into a teaching moment. What do we do with our strong emotions? In Jesus, we see emotion become motion. He did not wallow and he did not suppress; he acted. Specifically, he acted on someone else's behalf. That is exemplary and it gives us a new insight into what would Jesus do -- with my emotions.
