His Heart In Action

Matthew 11:29 is where Jesus tells us about His heart: gentle and lowly. However, time and again in the gospels, He proves His heart to us. Who He is is how He acts…“His life proves His heart.”

What do we see in Matthew 8:2–3 (“And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”)? The question is one of desire…Jesus, do you even want to do this? And Jesus’ response? I do.

What about Matthew 9:2 (“And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.””)? Before the question is even asked, Jesus responds.

And again, Matthew 9:35–36 (“And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”)? Seeing their sad spiritual state, Jesus is moved to respond.

Consider Luke 19:41 “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,” and John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” Jesus cries, and in both instances, is it for Himself? No. What moves Him to tears is the plight of others.

Finally, think of Luke 7:34 “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” The word friend refers to a person you “know well and regard with affection and trust.” Ask people who watched Jesus in the first century what they think about Christ and the way they think about Jesus is that the morally and socially reviled, the ones unworthy of holy relationships, those are the ones that Jesus shows affection to.

Think for just a moment, not about the theological work of Jesus, but think about His life, the way He acted and reacted to most of the people He came in contact with, and what is the “dominant note left ringing in our ears after reading the Gospels”? Is it not the tender care that Jesus continues to show to the least of these? Is it not how He heals? How He responds to others? The fact that He would touch the unclean? That the ultimate expression of His gentle and lowly heart is His willingness to embrace death on the cross for our sake?

Let’s pause for a moment and ask, “Are we in danger of over-emphasizing the grace and mercy of Christ?” Are we neglecting the harsher side of Christ that readily confronted the religious leaders of the day and reserved some of the harshest woes for the hypocritical ways of the religious? How do we ensure that we don’t over-embrace one aspect of a Christ who is not divided, but completely equal in all of His attributes?

“The wrath off Christ and the mercy of Christ are not at odds with one another.” We tend to see-saw on the character of Christ, thinking that as one aspect rises, the other falls. The truth, however, is that they “rise and fall together.” The better we understand Christ’s just wrath directed toward sin and evil, the more robust we understand His mercy toward unworthy sinners.

“In speaking specifically of the heart of Christ (and…God in the Old Testament), we are not really on the wrath-mercy spectrum anyway.” The issue we are exploring is the heart of Christ…who is He “most deeply?”

“We are simply seeking to follow the biblical witness in speaking of Christ’s heart of affection toward sinners and sufferers.” If the Scripture overwhelmingly affirms the gentleness and lowliness of Jesus, then let us fully embrace what Scripture teaches rather than pursue some artificial balance.

Ultimately, “it is impossible for the affectionate heart of Christ to be over-celebrated, made too much of, exaggerated. It cannot be plumbed. But it is easily neglected, forgotten.” Truthfully, too often we fail to draw encouragement to run to Christ because we tend to neglect the gentle and lowly heart of Christ.

Pay attention to what we’ve worked at affirming the last couple of weeks — we are not just saying that Jesus is merciful or gracious or loving. Instead, we are arguing that when you consider both the stated truth and lived testimony of Jesus, what we see is that “his most natural instinct is to move toward…sin and suffering, not away from it.”

Think about this through the lens of OT/1st century Jewish thinking. Everything was weighed against the backdrop of clean vs. unclean. Even in matters of ritual purity, there is an element of moral corruption, because typically what was required in matters of purity was a sacrifice, not just a bath. But what is even more telling is that this impurity was contagious, and contact with the impure imputed that impurity on others.

But...

Consider Jesus. There is not a more pure person to ever walk the earth. Levitically speaking, He aced the test. And, a person so pure, we would naturally think they would run from any type of ritual impurity. You know those people who fear germs like every one of them is the second coming of the bubonic. The purel-after-everything crowd. But what did Jesus do when He saw them? What was His response to loose women and lepers alike?

And, this is deeper even than revealing Christ’s heart for the hurting, though it does that in clarion beauty. In moving toward the broken and unclean, Jesus reverses the reality…“When Jesus, the Clean One, touched an unclean sinner, Christ did not become unclean. The sinner became clean.”

Everywhere Jesus went, He saw the pain and brokenness of a sin-scarred world. He was moved, frequently, with compassion toward the creation He loves. He wasn’t a divine machine simply moving through the world. He was the Word who became flesh and made His dwelling among us. As Thomas Goodwin put it, “Christ is love covered over in flesh.”

And now remember that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. “The same Christ that wept at the tomb of Lazarus weeps with us in our lonely despair. The same one who reached out and touched lepers puts his arm around us today when we feel misunderstood and sidelined. The Jesus who reached out and cleansed messy sinners reaches into our souls and answers our half-hearted plea for mercy with the might invincible cleansing of one who cannot bear to do otherwise.”

And just think, He is all of this and even closer to us than He was to those whom He walked among and served during His earthly ministry. Why? Because now He accomplishes it through His Spirit who lives within us.

Are there any of Jesus’ interactions in the gospels that stick out to you personally, reminding you that Jesus is gentle and lowly?

How does your view of Jesus’ reaction to our sin and suffering differ from how Jesus is presented in the gospels?

We mentioned that Jesus reverses the OT order, that He doesn’t fear being made unclean, but rather makes us clean, when we come in contact with Him. What difference does this make in our lives?

Can we receive the same compassionate love today that Jesus showed others in the first century? If so, how?