not meeting expectations, NomeSane?

Anu Garg caught my eye with his word for today, splanchnic, which is so obviously from Greek that its spelling and sound caused to surface in my mind what to me is one of the most intriguing gospel stories. 

At Mark 1:40f Jesus, exhausted from helping so many needy people who have heard about him - - remember the scenario at the Temple in Jesus Christ Superstar when he is so overwhelmed by the crowd of poor and sick and lame and deaf and dumb and blind beggars desperately reaching and touching and grabbing and snatching and demanding, 

See my eyes, I can hardly see
See me stand, I can hardly walk
I believe you can make me whole
See my tongue, I can hardly talk
See my skin, I'm a mass of blood
See my legs, I can hardly stand
I believe you can make me well
See my purse, I'm a poor poor man
Will you touch, will you mend me, Christ?
Won't you touch, will you heal me, Christ?
Will you kiss, you can cure me, Christ?
Won't you kiss, won't you pay me, Christ?

that he screams “Heal yourselves!!!" - - 

is confronted by a leper, who says “If you want to, you can make me clean”. In the good old time sweet KJV Sunday school Bible story, Jesus of course meets our expectations as, πλαγχνισθεὶς, moved with pity, compassion, he responds “I DO want to. Be clean!” and our hearts melt. 

Apparently though, Jesus did not come to meet our expectations of him, but to tell us God’s expectations of us. And he did so as a normal man, fully human (if you didn’t know that, know it now, pure and complex Christian orthodoxy: one Person, two natures, fully God and fully man), which is to say fully man with the complete range of adult late-twenties or early thirty-something workaholic human male emotions, urges, aging, impatience, love, desires, hopes and needs, including at times he may “have an attitude”. Just so, on this occasion, he was tired, dammit, worn out by people. If you’ve ever been a burned-out pastor, or indeed a supervisor who's had enough and lost your patience with a pack of incompetent humans, you NomeSane, eh?

So, I think the NIV translation has it right when it says (as does the Tyndall House Greek New Testament) (Mark 1:41*) Jesus was ὀργισθεὶς indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And then Jesus, knowing what will come of the man’s blabbing, tersely orders him to keep his mouth shut about it. Which as it turns out is a logical explanation for that mysterious messianic secret or Markan secret.

So, I get this, to me, quite refreshing and assuring story of Jesus’ humanity, coming to my Wednesday morning surface upon seeing Anu Garg’s word splanchnic, an adjective that means of or relating to the internal organs or viscera. Jesus’ visceral reaction, σπλαγχνισθεὶς, he was moved with compassion. I like that better, even though I suspect he was actually ὀργισθεὶς at having his momentary peace interrupted. 

What else I like, Anu Garg’s thought for today: It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards. - Baltasar Gracian, philosopher and writer (8 Jan 1601-1658). Speaking for myself, I’ve done, said, written many things that immediately having done, spoken, or pressed “send”, I deeply regretted yea unto keeping me awake nights. I’ll bet you have too.

Tom

pic: Guadalupe passing 7H making for Progreso

* Mark 1:41
ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ 1:41 σπλαγχνισθεὶς א A B C K L W Δ Θ 69 1424; οργισθεις D