Make up your heart

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102225.cfm

Some people struggle with decisiveness. They can’t pull the trigger. They linger in the in-between space. Here in the in-between, all of the options are still open. In the in-between, we have not closed ourselves off from one or more alternatives. Here in the in-between all things are still possible. But they aren’t. In the in-between all things are only theoretical. In this space you do not have or possess any of the fruits or outcomes of your decisions yet. You might be able to think of them or compare them, but you DO NOT HAVE THEM. The in-between seems full of promise, but in reality, it is an empty place.

Jesus would like nothing more than to free you from that. He knew that in coming to earth some would not be able to accept Him and what He promised. They would be so attached to their lives (in particular here, He was probably speaking to a mostly Jewish audience, although Luke will use this in a Gospel written to a much broader group) that they could not choose him. Jesus is OK with that. They are choosing. Jesus does not leave room for the middle ground and He knows this.

He is proposing that He is the Messiah, and even moreso – that He is God. There are some who will want to accept him as Messiah, but not as the Son of God. This is the middle ground that He tells us does not exist. If one intends to be in the middle of this fluid spectrum of ‘revered prophet, good teacher, maybe he came to save us by telling us how to live better’ then that person is actually denying who Jesus is. There is no middle.

Either Jesus is the son of God in the way He describes Himself to us, or, in the words of C.S. Lewis – he is either a liar or a lunatic. This will cause division and Jesus knows it. But He is Truth and so it cannot be any other way. Some people who did not choose Him right then would come to choose Him later. He knows that also. But truth is truth and watering it down so that it is palatable is not an option.

If we want to live our lives accepting half or three quarters of what Jesus really is, then we are trying to be in-between. I hate to break it to you (and to me) – this does not exist. If we are not all-in, then we have chosen against Him. For decades, churches full of ‘dutiful’ Catholics unknowingly led their children right out the door of the Church, by pretending they were in-between. “Oh, I’ll go on Sunday, but the rest of the week (or afternoon on Sunday) is MINE”.

This sounds a little fire and brimstoney – it is. Literally. Jesus talks about the fire that He brings, and we see that fire in the lives of His Apostles after Pentecost. HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS OF SALVATION: We don’t have to be perfect in this. We probably aren’t capable of being perfect in this. That is why Jesus has built this New Covenant on the cornerstone of mercy. To steal from the old Cheap Trick song, Jesus says: ‘I want you to want me.’ He wants our hearts to desire and pursue Him as He desires and pursues us. He knows that we will falter, but hopefully that won’t change our hearts once they are made up. Jesus Christ came to express the love of God in bodily form, in the Word Made Flesh, not so that we could make up our mind to follow Him. If that were the case, He would have just given us a bunch of irrefutable proof of who He was. No, He came so that we would make up our HEARTS to love Him.