Worldly Hearts

Mark 15:15–20 (ESV)

So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.

Today, if we were to abuse an animal in the way that the soldiers treated Jesus, we would be fined and put in prison. On the surface, at least, our society will not tolerate violence. The hypocrisy is shown by the legalized murder of the unborn (in 2017, there were 17,294 intentional homicides in the US but 862,320 abortions). Violence is the way of the world.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9). We are born into this world with corrupted hearts, and it is the role of the parents and society to curb the viciousness of those hearts and urge them towards virtue. Jesus said, "For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person" (Mark 7:21–23).

Jesus says that it is out of the human heart that murder and all wickedness derive, and the soldiers’ barbarous mockery of Jesus reminds us of the depravity of the human heart and of why we needed God's Son to redeem us. To take pleasure in the suffering of another human is inhumane, but to take comfort from the suffering of Jesus for our sins is what God wants for us! To find solace in the piercing of Christ's sacred heart is God's remedy for our guilty consciences. And to take up our cross (which involves suffering!) and follow Jesus is God's will for our lives, which means that we are set free from the ways of the world.

After calling upon His disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him, Jesus asked, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). By this, He shows that the world is valueless in comparison with having our soul saved by Him. St. James identifies friendship with the world as enmity with God (James 4:4). St. John warns us not to love the world or the stuff of this world, for we can love only God or the world, not both at the same time. While we may safely use the things of this world to provide for our journey through it, we know that everything in this world is passing away, but “whoever does the will of God”—that is, trusts in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—“abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world, and He prayed to His Father for you: “[Father,] I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one” (John 17:14–15). By His righteousness, we stand justified before God. By His intercession, we are kept safe from Satan. By keeping our eyes fixed on Him, we are kept from falling back into the snares of this dying world. St. Paul writes to those baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:1–4).

Prayer: Almighty and most merciful God, in this earthly life we endure sufferings and death before we enter into eternal glory. Grant us grace at all times to subject ourselves to Your holy will and to continue steadfast in the true faith to the end of our lives that we may know the peace and joy of the blessed hope of the resurrection of the dead and of the glory of the world to come; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.