Stuff That Matters In Life

You would think Jesus only got angry at evil guys, so I was pretty scared when I read this in Mark 3:5 –

“And [Jesus] looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart…”

He was angry at the Pharisees for caring more about the Sabbath laws than about a man’s life. They weren’t murderers or rapists. They were upright citizens who followed the law.

While the name Pharisees has a well-deserved bad connotation, I sympathize with them. The Sabbath laws were instituted to keep the Jews holy. In OT history, they disregarded God’s laws and went their own evil ways, reaping the consequences of God’s judgment. The strict laws of the Pharisees were to insure that Israel will not sin against God.

Maintaining the laws became an obsession and lost it’s original intent of fellowship with God. It lost basic common sense.

I sympathize because to be honest, I’ve seen myself caring more about maintaining a nice neat structure than the people it is suppose to serves. You don’t mean to serve the structure, but it subtly creeps up on you.

Especially in working with children, we want the children to “fall in line, get with the program, be obedient”. We end up managing outward behavior to fit the mold than ministering to their needs. This is something I am constantly aware of. Children ministry is not managing behavior. It’s reaching their hearts.

I guess that’s why I like changes. I like to start things over so we can all remember what and why we do what we do. We focus back on people, and then form the structure to serve their needs.