When the Bible disturbs us
I was chatting with a friend yesterday about the power of Scripture to both comfort us and challenge us. It reminded me of a quote I once heard by Cesar A. Cruz—a gang violence prevention advocate and a dean at Harvard University.
He says, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
El Greco, Christ Healing the Blind, 1573
I couldn’t agree more. And you could just as easily substitute “Art” for “the Bible.”
The Bible isn’t a comfortable book for most. It’s a book with chilling stories, seemingly random and even unfair laws, shockingly raw poetry and laments, biographies recording resurrection, letters to specific people groups at specific places and times without context on what events the writers of those letters are even referring to.
I work in marketing, so I know how to make things palatable and compelling.
I know how to appeal to a large group of people.
I know how to “know my audience,” and speak to people in a way they want to be spoken to in order to connect them to the value that my company wants to provide them.
That’s NOT how the Bible is written. Rather, it’s:
“…alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Heb 4:12-13)
The Scriptures discern the condition of our hearts better than we know our hearts ourselves. It locates where we already are. If we try to deny what the Bible is telling us about ourselves, it only makes the fog of doubt and skepticism thicken.
Jesus speaks to this when his disciples ask why he uses parables to teach the crowds.
“This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’ In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’” (Matt 13:13-15)
Jesus follows the biblical authors’ and the prophets’ practice of telling the people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
Jesus isn’t concerned with good PR when he says, “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.” (John 6:56)
As a result of this statement, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (John 6:66). But the followers who stayed after Jesus asked whether they would leave too, were those who said, “to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)
God is not like us, and oh, what a good thing that is. Because this is true, the Bible doesn’t conform to our very human expectations of it. Rather, it challenges us. Disturbs us. Shakes us up and, at times, leaves us feeling as if the ground was ripped out from under us.
But we would never change if the Bible didn’t do those things. We would never know the gift of repentance and faith (Heb 6:1). We would never go from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18) and strength to strength (Ps 84:7). If the Bible didn’t challenge us, we would never get a glimpse of the kingdom—of the city prepared for us whose builder and maker is God (Heb 11:10).
We will all have times when the Bible disturbs us. But we will also have times when we come to the Bible already disturbed by life, and we will find unexplainable comfort in those same Scriptures. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke [teaching, way of life] upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
He says in his Sermon on the Mount, “blessed are the poor in spirit…the mourn[ers]…the meek…the persecuted”—the disturbed.
The Bible does indeed disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. Each time we come to it, may it always do the number on our hearts that it needs to in order to bring us closer to God.
When the Scriptures challenge us, may we be the disciples who respond with:
“to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)