The Longing of Jesus

I know that one of my greatest weaknesses is my propensity to allow anger to control me.  It's something that when it wells up inside of me can make me a downright miserable, intolerable person to be around.  It fuels insecurity.  It fuels hypocrisy.  It fuels broken relationships.  Those closest to me - my wife and 3 kids - bear the brunt of it when it controls me.  Fortunately, as I am growing in grace and growing to become more like Jesus, it's something that I deal with less and less, and for shorter periods of time.  Anger can certainly be debilitating and toxic for those that struggle to reign it in.

But anger can also be the fuel for righteousness, justice and repentance.  Sometimes anger is a good and holy thing.  If you are friends with me on Facebook, and if you read my blog regularly, you know that there are some things in the world that just anger me because of the injustice and indignity that they perpetuate.  

In today's reading from Matthew 23 we see Jesus in a different light than we're used to seeing him.  He's in full out, righteous-anger mode and verbally tearing up the false religion that the Pharisees perpetuate on themselves and on other people.  Among other things, he calls them hypocrites, blind guides and even snakes as he systematically strips apart their self-righteousness and arrogance. 

In v.37 we see something so striking. The anger of Jesus is fueled by a longing: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.

The longing of Jesus is to gather God's people together and to reconcile them to God.  The imagery he uses here is something most of us have seen in nature (or at least on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet).  As somebody that spends a lot of time in the outdoors hunting and fishing, I've seen examples of exactly what Jesus is talking about here.

Have you ever seen a killdeer bird protecting her nest from predators?  If you haven't, take 45 seconds and watch this clip.

 

The mother killdeer, in an effort to protect her young from predators, drags herself away from her nest and pretends to have a broken wing so that the predators will focus their attention on her and away from her eggs or from her young.  In almost every instance in nature, the instinct of a mother is to protect her young at all costs so that they might live.

Jesus again takes a common, every day occurrence and uses it to illustrate the Kingdom of God.  His anger towards the Pharisees is fueled by a longing to give them abundant, eternal life.  His anger towards the Pharisees is fueled by a longing to save the people that have been controlled, crushed and misled by the Pharisees to give them abundant, eternal life.

The longing of Jesus is to give each and every one of us life.  As I've talked about in recent posts when Jesus deals with the Pharisees, we see that dead, self-righteous religion is one of the greatest stumbling blocks to living the abundant life that Jesus promised us.  

Jesus longs for us to long for Him.  To know that He alone is our source of salvation, forgiveness and eternal life and that dead religion leads us to death.  To know that He gives grace and mercy abundantly, when dead religion tells us that we simply must work harder or do more or live more strictly and joylessly.  To know that He gives healing and strength to those that trust in Him and wait on Him, when dead religion leaves us wondering why we're so weak and sick.  

Today begins the 40 day season of Lent.  It has historically been a time of sacrifice and dying to self for Christians throughout the centuries as we look forward to celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.  I'd like to encourage you to use these 40 days as an opportunity to learn to long for Jesus.  To long for mercy.  To long for grace.  To long for truth.  To long for healing.  To long for abundant life.  For you, that may mean making a decision to give something up.  For others, it may mean actually starting to do something new.  Whatever it is, don't make it about dead religion.  Don't make it about what you can do to make yourself righteous.  Make it about longing for the life that Jesus gives and longs to give to us.