Exodus 7:25-8:19
2 Corinthians 3:7-18
Mark 10:17-31
But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
The Daily Lectionary is generally not designed to be thematic. That is, the readings aren't really arranged to make sense together, but just to guide our reading through the Old Testament, Epistles and Gospels. But God's written word is amazing and so rich that sometimes common threads can be found. Today, we meet in the readings three different hard-hearted people. Now, this is not exactly a surprise, hard-heartedness is a major theme in the Bible, simply because this particular cardiac condition is universal to human beings.
First we meet Pharaoh, the Bible's poster-child for hard-heartedness. It seems towards the middle of the reading, that perhaps the frogs had just gotten to ol' Pharaoh. Frogs in your bed and frogs in your food could cause even the toughest nut to crack. So, he calls Moses and tells him to get rid of the frogs and Moses, who is at this point showing off, asks "and what time would you like the frogs to go?" But when the frogs all die precisely when Pharaoh requested, he wasn't impressed. The trouble was over, ease had returned, he no longer saw a need to pay any attention to Moses.
"He hardened his heart, and would not listen to them." Twice we read that today. It tolls like a bell at the end of the plagues marking Pharaoh's decent deeper into his sin. It's Pharaoh catch phrase. "He hardened his heart, and would not listen to them." I think we find there the essence of what it means to have a hard heart. It means shutting yourself off, retreating into your pride and refusing to hear any message that contradicts what you want and what you supposedly need. The interesting thing is, it's not even just Moses and his God that Pharaoh is shutting out. Look closely at the Plague of the Gnats. It's his own magicians that he's refusing to listen to there. Pharaoh has decided that it is his way or the highway, and no one, not his enemies or his friends, not even the Most High God, can dissuade him otherwise. Now, we look to Pharaoh as sort of an arch-villain, the great hard-of-heart, but really he's not so exceptional, rather he's emblematic, an example of what all human beings are really like when they are shut off from God.
In Paul's second letter to Corinth, we read about a hard-minded people of Israel who also refuse to listen. They read Moses with a veil over their hearts, refusing to hear the words of Scriptures for what they really are. Again, we could just chalk up what Paul writes to Israel's perennial stubbornness, but just like Pharaoh they are not unique. We all go through life veiled to God's truth, refusing to hear what he has to say, because what he has to say is to much for us, it shakes our world to much. We, like Israel at the foot of Mt. Sinai, refuse to hear God's voice out of our fear.
But, we have Christ, who removes the veil.
Why then, do we still struggle with hardness of heart if we have met the one who removes the veil, who allows us to listen? Well, it's because even then, even after we encounter Jesus, we can still clutch the veil, still cherish our hard hearts, because that's where we are safe, where our assumptions and securities are not challenged. In the Gospel today, we read the familiar story of the Rich Young Ruler. Imagine coming to Jesus and hearing him say "You lack one thing." One thing! There was only one thing between the young man and God. Unfortunately, it was the one thing upon which his whole life, his whole identity was built. It was the one thing that he could not imagine living without, and so his heart was hardened and he turned away. For the Rich Young Ruler, to give up his wealth was to give up himself. Which is truly the one thing that is between all of us and God, the one thing we all need to give up, our selves. It's also the one thing that our hearts harden around.
What then is the solution, how do we get over our heart-hardness, so that we can give up that one thing, so the veil will be removed and we can behold the glory of Lord and be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another? We cannot do it without God. With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
And the truly amazing thing is that God actually desires to give us new hearts, new hearts that love him. Through the prophet Ezekiel God says to his people, to us: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26) We need only come to him with the willingness to give up our "one thing" and he does the rest.
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