Curing the Hard Heart

A Reflection on Friday’s Gospel (Mark 10:1-12) – 24 May 2024

     In the Gospel today, Jesus speaks to a basic human problem, a deadly sickness, “hardness of heart”. The Lord links “hardness of heart” to why Moses relented in allowing divorce but, as Jesus describes, “from the beginning” God never intended it to be so. Moses’ giving in to what God never intended, is just symptomatic of the problem of the “hard heart.” Sickness is never cured by ignoring its source; it just gets worse. We cannot resolve our personal sin through redefining the truth to fit our needs, no matter how “convenient” or compassionate to the human condition that “giving in” may sound. We need help! We need a cure! We need a Savior!

     When I was a child, I used to love the story of the Exodus. First, it was a remarkable story of God’s unstoppable love for His people. Second, the Bible my grandmother read from had great illustrations. Even today, I can still picture Pharaoh’s obstinate, arrogant face while refusing God’s demand to set His people free. I am still amazed that Pharaoh, after having been given so much evidence of God’s power and his own weakness, still refused to let the people of Israel go. His crazed pride results in disaster as He drives the Egyptian Army into the Red Sea in pursuit as the waves crashed in upon them. God tells Moses,

I will so harden Pharaoh’s heart that he will pursue them. Thus I will receive glory through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.
(Exodus 14:4 NABRE)

     Note God’s intent in this last moment of the Exodus, is primarily to save the people of Egypt from sin, not to harm them but, to convert them.

     In the ancient world, the heart was the seat of decision. Stubbornness such as Pharaoh’s, in contending with Almighty God, was inexplicable unless attributed to divine imposition. This in no way diminished Pharaoh’s responsibility. It emphasizes how crazy it was for a man to act with such arrogance in the face of God. Imagine, who fights with God?

     The Hebrew for “harden” is châzaq (חָזַק) meaning “tightly bound, restrained, obstinate in the extreme.” Unfortunately, we all suffer from Pharaoh’s obstinance in those personal sins which seem unconquerable. It is crazy to refuse God’s love and mercy and prefer sin; yet we do. This is our fallen nature, our own sick addiction to sin, such that we refuse to be healed. God tells Jeremiah,

But this people’s heart is stubborn and rebellious; they turn and go away, … The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests teach on their own authority; Yet my people like it this way; what will you do when the end comes? (Jeremiah 5:23,31 NABRE)

     It is incredible that knowing who God is, we still refuse Him. Who in their right mind, a “right heart,” would not turn from sin and be healed? But we do not possess that “right heart.”

     When someone has heart problems we go to a doctor for a cure and receive a healing treatment. We who suffer from hardened hearts cannot cure ourselves of sin through the simple application of our own will. The cure must come from outside of us. In the case of medicine, we have to take it to live. The same is true for the sin-hardened heart. We cannot conquer sin on our own, even when we know it leads to death. We need the divine physician.

     Last Sunday closed the Easter Season with the Feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. The Lord Jesus came to cure us of a perpetually hard and rebellious heart. He offers the gift of the Holy Spirit as the cure. That is why “blaspheming the Holy Spirit,” refusing the cure, leads to death (Matthew 12:31–32). The effect of God’s medicine is a heart opened to love, a life characterized by the fruits of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22 NABRE)

     If hardness of heart involves a willful closing of one’s mind and emotions from truth, then we need,

“the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.” (John 14:17 NABRE)

     Seek the gift of the Holy Spirit through prayer and receive Him in the Sacraments. God is the strength we need to conquer weakness and break through our hardness of heart. God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is waiting to cure every “hardened” heart. We just need to open the door.

     Christ is at hand! He comes by virtue of the Holy Spirit to announce the Good News; he comes to cure and to set free, to proclaim a time of grace and salvation, in order to [accomplish] … the work of the world’s redemption (St John Paul II Homily, 15 December 1996)

Endnotes:

Fugate, J. (2019, June 15). Dealing with a hardened heart. IndependentBaptist.com. https://www.independentbaptist.com/dealing-with-a-hardened-heart/

John Paul II. Homilies of Pope John Paul II (English). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2014. Print.

New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011. Print.