Tough but True

This blog post is a portion of an entry I am working on for Book Two of the "Walking Ancient Paths" series. It features the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes in particular, that Jesus spoke on a Galilean hill. The hill where this well-known Sermon was preached was  probably Mount Eremos, called the Mount of Beatitudes today. It is near Capernaum. 

Jesus is often depicted in children’s Bible story books as a gentle Teacher, smiling tenderly at little children. On the Mount of Beatitudes, it is easy to picture Jesus ministering to people – weary mothers and frazzled fathers – bringing stillness to their troubled minds. The scene here is serene, peaceful, quiet. The Sea of Galilee stretches before us and the emerald-green countryside speaks of rest and contentment.

And without doubt Jesus was gentle, kind, and calming. Some of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was like water to a thirsty soul.

“Blessed are they that mourn,” Jesus said, “for they shall be comforted.”  

 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

After explaining the love a father has for his children, Jesus asks, “How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

But in the midst of the promises of provision and blessing, Jesus was also demanding, divisive, and authoritative. His words demanded a decision. People hearing Him were presented with radical new ideas, completely beyond the status-quo.

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” These teachings oppose human nature. People, then as now, felt justified to return evil for evil. Do good to them that hate you?! This was an unusual idea.

“”Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile,” Jesus instructed, “go with him twain.” Everyone living in Israel in those days knew who Jesus was referring to: the dreaded Romans. They controlled Palestine, and a Roman soldier could force a Jewish man to carry his burden for one mile. It was the law. But Jesus was telling the repressed Jews to carry the Roman soldier’s burden another mile!

Jesus did not mince words. “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” No doubt some of the men in the crowd looked away when Jesus said this. Sure, they followed the law and did not commit outright adultery. They could boast of that. But the idea that God could see into their heart probably made them uncomfortable.

These were revolutionary ideas which Jesus presented, strange, new, and not accepted by everyone.

Jesus did not fit into any mold – religious, political, or cultural. He never once attempted to fit His teachings into the prevalent mindset of His day; rather, He expected people to change their minds to believe what He was saying. He was not intimidated by His society and never went to any trouble to conform to its culturally acceptable norms.

He used parables to help people relate to the ideas He presented, but He was not a people-pleaser and He never issued His stamp of approval to customs that were contrary to what He taught. He was counter-cultural and offered no apologies for his non-conformist views.  

If Jesus were alive in the flesh today, He would be ostracized and ridiculed by the majority of Americans as being too rigid, too inclusive, and too direct. He never adopted the “Let’s lay our differences aside so that we can all get along” ideology, as is the prevalent aspiration of ecumenical religious leaders of our day. Jesus made waves wherever He went. As the saying goes, He “upset the applecart” and He was not overly concerned about the fallout.

As my husband Bill says, “The Word of God makes people one of three things: Mad, sad, or glad.” One thing for sure, when you encounter Jesus, you will never be the same.

His words call you to a decision. “Follow me,” he says. Many choose to reject Him, to walk away. His demands are too uncomfortable, too restrictive. But God will never change to pacify a human being.

We are comfortable with the Jesus who stretches out his hand to bless a small child, who weeps over the city of Jerusalem, who shows compassion on the blind, the lame, the beggar. We like Jesus when He is soft-spoken, tender, and patient. Ours is a cruel, heartless world, and we long for His tender touch. We bask in His loving embrace. We desperately need Him to hold us, to care for us, to protect us. And He does all of these things. He is loving. He is compassionate. He is gentle. He is kind.

But when Jesus demands something of us, when He asks us to take up our cross and follow Him, when He speaks of sacrifice, of laying down our lives, of going the extra mile for someone who mistreats us, of doing good to people who hate us, what will our response be?

At one point in His ministry, when Jesus said some things that were hard for the listeners to understand and accept, “many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” Jesus turned to His twelve specially selected disciples and posed to them this haunting question: “Will ye also go away?” “Lord, to whom shall we go,” Peter responded. “Thou hast the words of eternal life.”

But the masses of people who had been following Jesus did not agree. Many of them deserted Jesus when He requested more than they were willing to give. They opted to take an inferior path instead. When the going got tough, they returned to their comfortable, predictable, controllable lives (John 6:53-67). 

Will you also go away? How deep do your loyalties lie? When Jesus asks you do something difficult, perhaps forgive someone who has hurt you deeply, or to sacrifice your personal comfort to fulfill His will for your life, what will you do?

We all like the cozy, safe, soothing words of Jesus reassuring us, comforting us. But it is fallacious and self-deceptive to define Him as a lovey-dovey, mild-mannered God who caters to our every whim and never places expectations on us. That is not His nature. He is a perfectly balanced, perfectly just God who knows what is best for us. It is in our best interest to follow Him, to obey Him regardless of the cost to our personal comfort.

What is He calling you to do? What is he calling me to do? 

May we always remember that the same God who sometimes asks us to do difficult things is the same God who will gently lead us, equip us, and help us accomplish what He asks us to do. No matter how contrary His demands are to our own desires, our obedience to them will serve us well in the end. When His path intersects ours, the proper choice is to follow Him, to forsake our own path, our own ways. In the end, we will not regret our decision.