What do you do when you come across teachings of Jesus that seem cold, abrupt, even rude ? What do you do when the teachings of Jesus offend you ? Would a good person ever come across as abrupt, rude, or cold ? Is there a difference between being a good person and being a nice person ? When the bible tells us that Jesus was unattractive and despised – do you think he would have been attractive to you ? Today we explore a side of the historical Jesus of Nazareth that people often avoid by considering his parallels to the most unlikely character imaginable in the Harry Potter series…

A nice person will never offend you, but a good person might. 

Matthew 15:21-28
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Isaiah 53:2-4

 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

John 6:60-64

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”

“We do not presume to come to this thy Table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy…”

It is in his mercy that he is veiled, and not fully revealed.  We could not bear full exposure to his goodness as we now are.  His words are exactly what we need to hear even when they are hard.   Don’t let go of what you do understand because of what you don’t understand.   This same Jesus is also described in Matthew this way:

“Seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.”  He said “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart”

Jesus came to seek and to save us and to sacrafice himself for us out of love. Yet, he was completely misunderstood and accused of terrible things. He had to bear his burden alone. A tiny glimpse of this kind of angst can be caught in the story of the character Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. At the very end of the series Harry suddenly understands who Snape really is after he goes through a process that allows him to see Snape’s memories. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHolRZeQNG4

Musical Credit: John Williams “Leaving Hogwarts” https://music.apple.com/us/album/leaving-hogwarts/89286124?i=89285919