This excerpt is from John MacMurray's, A Spiritual Evolution: Rediscovering the Greatest Story Ever Told. (Foreword by Paul Young) Click here to order.
Is it possible to be a person of conviction and passion for truth yet live with love and humility?
I believe it is. I haven’t met a lot of people like this, but I’ve met a few. Enough to know it’s possible. It’s hard—no doubt—a razor’s edge.
Jesus is a person of conviction and passion. He is also the epitome of love and humility. He doesn’t just have a passion for the truth; he is the truth.
Imagine for a moment Jesus teaching the holy writings of the Hebrews; the One who is the Word teaching a written word. As you listen, he is interrupted. People begin quarreling with Jesus. They tell him he’s wrong, that he’s not teaching Scripture correctly. Publicly embarrassing this rogue rabbi is not enough for them to elevate their imagined status among the crowd. Arrogance finds a voice when they accuse him of being demon possessed.1
The irony here is nearly unimaginable. They claim to know the scriptures better than he does.2How could they be so blind?
Who are these people?
They are the religious leaders of their community seeking to follow the one true God, the God of their ancestors—Abraham, Moses, and David. They call on others to do the same. They are not some fringe cult that drinks Kool-Aid. They are the leaders and teachers of their faith. They are in love with their scriptures, memorizing huge chunks regularly and teaching it faithfully day after day, week after week. They see themselves as defenders of the truth. They are the moral pillars in their neighborhoods pursuing morality with a zeal that would make us very uncomfortable. They are the gatekeepers . . . they are the Pharisees.
I confess: I was a Pharisee.
The thoughts above described me. I studied and memorized scripture. I wanted to follow the one true God. And yet, I stood in my self-righteousness, enslaved to my pride and the performance-oriented thinking that fueled it, ready to fight or argue with any who disagreed with my view of Jesus, including Jesus.
I have had to repent many, many times. I still do. Again, I wonder if I’m alone in this. Could it be that we modern religious types in the West are rapidly becoming, maybe already are, the new Pharisees?
When will I learn to love without an agenda?
When will I learn to love simply for the other’s sake?
Maybe we should take our cue from Jesus and join him in a walk of discovery of what it means to participate in his very life and truth. The life and truth of God.
Jesus’s truth is incarnational, not ideological.
The scriptures tell us of the eternal Son who came in the flesh to include us in his relationship with his Father. This required a stooping down on God’s part, unparalleled in the history of religion. A stooping down to reach us in the darkness in which we live and rescue us from our own self-destruction. This humility was the stunning revelation that God loves us for our sake.
Every one of us is traveling through this thing called life. And for each of us, our awareness of what is true and good is at different points along the way. Sure, there are millions of side roads and turnouts that draw our attention, but we are all on the same journey.
For too long I have embraced the gospel of “I am right!” And if you don’t agree with me, “You are wrong!” Too long I’ve lived in arrogance disguised as a lover and defender of abstract truth.
I no longer want to live there.
Instead, I want to bear witness to his relentless love—
A love that takes into account right and wrong but also sees beyond it to relationship.
A love that loves us just as we are but loves us too much to leave us there.
— not my ability to win an argument.
God did not come to us in flesh to prove he was right.
Notes:
1. This story is found in Matthew 12:1–42.
2. How does Jesus respond to this scathing accusation? Does the narrative read, “From that time on Jesus went throughout the countryside defending his interpretation of the Scriptures, proving everyone else wrong”? Interestingly, Matthew chooses to quote Isaiah 42:1–4. It sheds light on Jesus’s response, particularly in Matthew 12:19, “He will not quarrel or cry out . . .”