Jesus Mean and Wild | Mark Galli

Mark Galli. Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God. Baker, 2006. 208 pp.

I once wrote an article for a leading Christian publication and in one part noted how “mean” Jesus was at times. My seminary-educated editor deleted the paragraphs, and when I asked why, she said I was taking the verses out of context, and it would take too much space to explain that Jesus wasn’t really mean. I replied that these were but a sampling of passages where Jesus seemed pretty intimidating. I gave two more examples. She stared at me hard. Then she blinked in seeming irritation as she said, “I can explain those too.”

Every age stumbles blindly past certain teachings of Scripture. The early church didn’t spend much time pondering Paul’s teaching on justification by faith—that was left to the Reformation. The medieval church rarely reflected on the Great Commission—that was left to the nineteenth-century missionary movement. . . .

Today, especially in America, we have other blind spots, particularly when it comes to Jesus. . . .

I have been a member of two mainline denominations and have heard such “Gumbylike” divinities as these: “Jesus is always patient.” “Jesus’ mercy embraces even the demons.” . . . Not to mention the many sermons from which I got the distinct impression that Jesus came not so much to proclaim the kingdom of heaven but to bolster my sagging self-esteem.

How foreign is all this to the Gospels? Many a New Yorker cartoon gently mocks the long-haired street evangelist who carries around a sign that says, “Repent! The world is about to end.” But this is more or less the opening message of Jesus: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (see Mark 1:15). Jesus’ call to repent is stark—job, family, and former attachments must be forsaken. He never sugarcoats this call with promises of intimacy with God or having one’s deepest needs met.

Nearly everywhere we turn, in the Gospel of Mark for example, we find a Jesus who storms in and out of people’s lives, making implicit or explicit demands and, in general, making people feel mighty uncomfortable. . . .

All this, combined with Jesus’ extraordinary miracles, elicits not pious peace and happiness but shock and awe. Onlookers are “amazed” at his first healing (1:27), “overcome with amazement” after the raising of the dead girl (5:42), “utterly astounded” at his walking on water (6:51), “greatly astounded” at his teaching on wealth (10:26). Even worse, the disciples are frightened after Jesus’ stilling of the storm (4:35-41) and “terrified” at the transfiguration (9:6). The woman healed of a blood flow is at first filled with “fear and trembling” (5:33), and on the first Easter morning the witnesses are seized with “terror and amazement,” and they run from the tomb “for they were afraid” (16:8).

This is not Jesus “meek and mild” of the infamous Wesley hymn. This is Jesus the consuming fire, the raging storm, who seems bent on destroying everything in his path, who either shocks people into stupefication or frightens them so that they run for their lives. This divinity we had thought was under lock and key and confined to the Old Testament. . . .

Worse, this theme does not sit unobtrusively on the edges of biblical revelation but keeps elbowing its way onto center stage. It’s not a minor aspect of God’s character but a dominant personality trait. What are we to make of this? We are told—rightly!—that God is love. We are told—rightly!—that Jesus is God incarnate. How in the world are we to understand this unnerving behavior as love? . . .

The main problem is not that we’ve become soft around the middle and need more stern talk of discipleship’s cost or boot camps for the soul. It’s not that we should resurrect the cruel and arbitrary God to inspire a proper awe of things divine. This is nothing but Christian fascism.

No, the main problem is that we’ve become deaf to the richer parts of the symphony of love. We hear the melody played by the strings but ignore the brass and wind and especially the percussion sections. We don’t notice the strong harmonies, the counterpoint, and the dissonant chords. We are left with a memorable tune that lifts our spirits, but we are missing out on the richness of the music God would have us hear. . . .

For those who truly want to know and love God as he is, the warm and friendly Jesus, although an attractive idea, is but an idol. And the fascist God will simply not do. To enjoy a full-orbed faith will require that our idea of God gain some unnerving texture, some dynamic energy, some subtlety and depth. It will require that we live into the love of God as manifested in the mean and wild Christ. This Jesus reveals not a one-dimensional, sentimental love—a love that merely makes us feel good—but a love capable of saving a desperate world.

In this book, I explore this unnerving texture by working through seventeen passages in the Gospel of Mark where I find Jesus the most discomforting. Though I’ve tried to check my reading of Mark against a number of modern commentaries, this is not an exegetical book. Nor is it systematic theology. This is merely one man’s attempt to understand theologically and pastorally what in the world Jesus was up to when he acted so mean and wild.

I have found time and again that as I explore this sometimes frightening mine, I spot what seems to be a speck of gold. But when I pick at it, a thick, rich vein opens up before me, and I hardly have the wherewithal to adequately excavate the brilliance that shines before me. This is not a clumsy attempt at humility but rather an encouragement to the reader ever to read, study, and inwardly digest the Gospels, where the mean and wild Jesus roams. There you will find, especially in the darkest and most forbidding passages, the very splendor and richness of God’s love.

Taken from pp. 15-20 of Jesus Mean and Wild by Mark Galli. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, copyright 2006. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group. Visit http://www.BakerPublishingGroup.com

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