Paradoxology is thrilled to have as our special guest today, Mark Galli, author of the recently released book, "Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God." [He will be checking-in throughout the day, responding to your questions and comments] I recently interviewed Mark about his book, which appears below:
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Why in the world did you
want to write a book on this topic?
I want to address two related concerns. First,
the sentimentalizing of Jesus. I had heard too many sermons and teachings in
which Jesus is described as “always gentle,” “always compassionate,” and so
forth. I immediately thought of biblical passages in which Jesus is anything
but that. One night I read through the Gospel of Mark and marked every passage
where Jesus comes across as stern or intimidating. I saw that this was a
regular feature of his ministry, and I wanted to understand it better.
The question that intrigued me was this: If
Jesus was God’s love incarnate, how did these stern, angry, intimidating
passages reflect the love of God?
Second, I wanted to address the sentimentalizing
of faith. There is a temptation to
believe in God’s love when things are going well, and to doubt that love when
they aren’t. I wanted to remind us all that sometimes we’re driven into the
wilderness of doubt, despair, emptiness, and trials by the same Spirit who
drove Jesus into the wilderness. And that this same Spirit is the one who
descends on us from time to time to remind us that we are beloved of the
Father. Everything that happens to us is encompassed by God’s love, but that
love does not always feel good.
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Where in Scripture do you
find Jesus at his meanest and wildest?
Certainly there is the turning of the tables in the Temple. This included the use of a whip, which Jesus himself fashioned. The fact that he took some time to make this whip, according to John 2, indicates that his violent behavior in the Temple was not an explosion of anger -- as if he "lost his temper" -- but a premeditated action.
The other main passage that comes to mind is
Matthew 23, where Jesus in verse after verse relentlessly assaults the
Pharisees, calling them snakes, hypocrites, and white-washed tombs.
But what really impressed me as I researched the
book was in how many little ways Jesus was “mean and wild.” One instance is how
often he spoke “sternly” to people he had just healed—“Don’t tell anyone about
this!” The language used is not a
request or a suggestion. It’s a stern warning.
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What
prevents people from seeing and appreciating Jesus as mean and wild?
For some, it upsets their idea of love. Love to
them is about gentleness, kindness—the soft virtues. They have forgotten that
love includes the strong virtues, like boldness, courage, and even anger.
For others, it’s a reaction against a religious
upbringing that was “mean and wild”—legalistic, oppressive. Their faith came
alive when they discovered how merciful Jesus was and is, and they’re having a
hard time understanding how his stern side can be loving.
Others still are simply afraid. If this is part
of Christ’s humanity, then it must be part of ours if we are to imitate Christ.
But employing anger, boldness, sternness, and such in our lives is not easy,
and it’s easy to get it wrong and make things worse. That’s why we revert to
niceness as the chief Christian virtue. It seems safe (when it actually isn’t).
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