God’s love grows beyond our expectations

Every day we’re asking four questions about part of the Bible. Today Bern Leckie answers:

What did I like about today’s passage?

I can't help notice the huge strength of emotion around Jesus. What made the Pharisees so eager to trip Jesus up? I used to think it was all about pride and jealousy, and that is probably in there, but reading this again I saw that Jesus isn't cool and teacherly, he is angry and "deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts..." (chapter 3 verse 5).

This doesn't sound like the bitterness of a sworn enemy, but the frustration of someone hoping for a relationship which isn't happening. This seems to be a bit of a recurring theme in Mark and Genesis!

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

The biggest surprise for me is, while that this brokenness between people and God needs overwhelming power to fix, Jesus talks about the kingdom of God like a small, fragile, organic thing.

When people work to extend a human kingdom, they build big, powerful battle machines. But God's kingdom is going to grow massively from the smallest seeds. I guess God knows how world works, and how we work, much better than we do, and Jesus encourages disciples who have the seeds of God's word to scatter them and expect growth beyond anything they can understand.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

We love our multicultural community. However, it can be tempting to pigeonhole our neighbours by their background, appearance and past culture, and this limits who I think might respond to God. I need to be less limited by my own prejudices and more open to sharing faith and extending family as Jesus did.

Who am I going to share this with?

I must admit I still don’t feel ready to invite everyone I know with a different faith to come and meet Jesus! But I will look around in our local school community for other people I can pray with, so we can be guided together by God in this.