Photo by: Eric Schmuttenmaer
Two recent articles on developments in heart research sound promising. One talks about a form of gene therapy that uses a heart-healing virus to help rebuild heart muscle. Another describes the effectiveness of using the crisis that requires a procedure to open one blocked artery as an occasion to clear out the rest of the vessels as well— rather than waiting for another event to occur.
Together these articles renewed my appreciation for modern medical research and therapy– while reminding me of the greater problem we all face.
Physically and spiritually, our need for a healthy heart is as critical as it is obvious. It’s also apparent that the God-given gifts of pain and diagnostics are not the same as God-given solutions.
Jesus, as we all know, emphasized a healthy heart above all necessary concerns for the body. He even went so far as to tell his disciples that unless the health of their hearts was better than the hearts of religious leaders of their day, they would not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20).
Depending on how we hear those words, they may, or may not, sound like the loving words of a great physician. They also might not resonate with what Jesus was doing in drawing crowds of hurting people to himself, healing their sicknesses and diseases, and declaring the good news of the kingdom (Matt 4:23-25).
Yet when taken together with the opening words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (from which Matt 5:20 is lifted), they take on a different meaning. I’m wondering if we can hear the Teacher saying something like,
“Try not to forget what I’ve been saying. I’m am bringing you good news. I want to help all of you, whoever you are, to see your hearts in a way that will cause you to invite me into your lives— not only to forgive you, and to urge you to honor me above all others, but to give you reason to let me reorder your inner world. I want so much for you to see that,
Only when you lose confidence in yourself will you see your need of me.
How can I comfort you until you begin to mourn your attempts to live apart from me?
Only when you stop fighting me and give me permission to begin re-ordering your inner world will I give you more than you ever hoped for.
I will fill your life to overflowing when you begin to hunger and thirst for the kind of rightness that comes from my heart rather than your own.
Being right with me will give you a heart of mercy for others.
Mercy will wash the windows of your heart and enable you to see the reassuring presence of God, above, beneath, in, and around you.
Once you begin to see that the battles of your lives are in the hands of your God, you will see why I’m changing your self-protective ways with the heart of a peace-maker. ”
Admittedly, this is a pretty loose paraphrase. But if we don’t catch the intent of what Jesus is saying in his opening words, couldn’t we be inclined to think that the rest of his Sermon on the Mount is a confusing mix between a moral idealism we have no hope of experiencing– or else just a challenge to look deeper and to try harder to solve the problem being signaled by our pain?
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