Gentle Jesus, meek and... wild?
Mark Driscoll got into hot water several months back for his rant that he doesn't want to serve a God that is puny or weaker than him. And I have to agree. If God isn't bigger, stronger, wiser, more powerful, more merciful, and more loving than what I can muster, then I'm a little concerned. So, Mark proceeded to describe his Jesus as a powerful, untamable, unrelenting warrior-like God. But I wonder if we've still missed out on what Jesus is really like.
The Jesus I read about in the Gospels is gentle and loving enough to attract the children from the crowd. I like to imagine Jesus sitting on the grass with two or three wiggling kids crammed onto his lap, a few more telling him stories with squirmy excitement--dancing around his feet to reenact their tales. Still more hang around his neck and on his hands. And yet, like a great dad with lots of little children, Jesus has so much love and joy that each child feels that they are the most important in the gaggle. The Jesus I read about is tender and quiet enough, humble and gentle enough to love the children with extreme care.
But this same Jesus is wild enough to storm into the Temple courtyard and overturn the tables of the money-changers, drive the goats, sheep, and other animals out into the busy streets, and scream with controlled rage, "My House is a house of prayer, not a den of thieves!" Jesus terrified the crowds that day, but was in complete control of his rage and his anger was righteous. Every time I read this story, I notice that he told the traders with doves and birds to take them out... all the other animals could be rounded up--with extreme difficulty--and the sellers would not suffer financial loss. Jesus didn't smash the cages of the birds or let them free. He was in complete control of his outburst to the point that each of the marketers and money-changers could gather their belongings and four-footed wares and relocate to a new, more appropriate place of business.
The Jesus in the Gospels was mild and gentle enough to cry with Mary and Martha when their brother died. He was kind enough to mercifully touch the sick and heal them, to cry over the city of Jerusalem. But He was wild enough to risk reputation to party with the tax collectors, shoot piercing words at the Pharisees and Sadducees, rebuke the winds and the storm to make them calm. He was meek enough to ask the Father to let the cup of death pass from him, but wild enough to finish the work He began--the work of redemption. He was tender enough to feel the emptiness and hopelessness that came from separation from God on the cross when he cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" But he was wild and powerful enough to tell Pilate, "You have no power over me except what is given to you from above."
The phrase, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," might be partially true, and I think I understand what Mark Driscoll was trying to get at. Mark didn't want just the gentle, mild Jesus. There is a dangerous threat of complacent sentimentality in thinking of Jesus as just "meek and mild," but there is an equal danger in thinking of Jesus as a raging warrior. There is a danger of fear of God's untamed wrath, a threat of slipping into justifying our outbursts, saying we serve a raging God. Neither description of Jesus is complete--both hold pieces and shards of the truth, as do all of our descriptions of God. This side of Heaven we will never be able to completely and accurately capture the true character of God with human words. But we still need to try... to stretch and reach our understanding of the Messiah. So, for now, my Jesus is gentle, meek... and wild.
The Jesus I read about in the Gospels is gentle and loving enough to attract the children from the crowd. I like to imagine Jesus sitting on the grass with two or three wiggling kids crammed onto his lap, a few more telling him stories with squirmy excitement--dancing around his feet to reenact their tales. Still more hang around his neck and on his hands. And yet, like a great dad with lots of little children, Jesus has so much love and joy that each child feels that they are the most important in the gaggle. The Jesus I read about is tender and quiet enough, humble and gentle enough to love the children with extreme care.
But this same Jesus is wild enough to storm into the Temple courtyard and overturn the tables of the money-changers, drive the goats, sheep, and other animals out into the busy streets, and scream with controlled rage, "My House is a house of prayer, not a den of thieves!" Jesus terrified the crowds that day, but was in complete control of his rage and his anger was righteous. Every time I read this story, I notice that he told the traders with doves and birds to take them out... all the other animals could be rounded up--with extreme difficulty--and the sellers would not suffer financial loss. Jesus didn't smash the cages of the birds or let them free. He was in complete control of his outburst to the point that each of the marketers and money-changers could gather their belongings and four-footed wares and relocate to a new, more appropriate place of business.
The Jesus in the Gospels was mild and gentle enough to cry with Mary and Martha when their brother died. He was kind enough to mercifully touch the sick and heal them, to cry over the city of Jerusalem. But He was wild enough to risk reputation to party with the tax collectors, shoot piercing words at the Pharisees and Sadducees, rebuke the winds and the storm to make them calm. He was meek enough to ask the Father to let the cup of death pass from him, but wild enough to finish the work He began--the work of redemption. He was tender enough to feel the emptiness and hopelessness that came from separation from God on the cross when he cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" But he was wild and powerful enough to tell Pilate, "You have no power over me except what is given to you from above."
The phrase, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," might be partially true, and I think I understand what Mark Driscoll was trying to get at. Mark didn't want just the gentle, mild Jesus. There is a dangerous threat of complacent sentimentality in thinking of Jesus as just "meek and mild," but there is an equal danger in thinking of Jesus as a raging warrior. There is a danger of fear of God's untamed wrath, a threat of slipping into justifying our outbursts, saying we serve a raging God. Neither description of Jesus is complete--both hold pieces and shards of the truth, as do all of our descriptions of God. This side of Heaven we will never be able to completely and accurately capture the true character of God with human words. But we still need to try... to stretch and reach our understanding of the Messiah. So, for now, my Jesus is gentle, meek... and wild.
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