After reading it, my first thought was, "Why don't we lead with this?"
The book reflects the Puritan-style of explicating at length on a single verse. Ortlund has chosen Matthew 11:29: I am gentle and lowly in heart.
Ortlund begins by reminding us that this is the only place in all of Scripture where Jesus talks about his heart. It might be good for us to start there.
This not one characteristic among many. It is not in tension or balancing out his wrath. It's who he is.
Jesus IS gentle and lowly.
We see this time again in the gospels as he acts with love and humility towards ALL who sought him. The seeking him is key. Ortlund states, "This is not who he is to everyone, indiscriminately. This is how he is for those who come to him, who take his yoke upon them, who cry to him for help" (21).
Jesus pronounces "woe" and judgement on the non-repentant. But to the sick, he is the Great Physician.
In fact, in a very moving metaphor, Ortlund compares Jesus to a doctor working in third-world conditions. He is overjoyed when someone who is hurting and broken comes to him. He does not reject the patient or load him with guilt. He welcomes the chance to restore and to heal. That's who Jesus is. We, who come to him in repentance, are his joy.
Not only is Jesus standing with open arms, ready to welcome the profligate home, he understands us. The beauty of a god who came to earth as a man, and suffered in every way a man can suffer, means he looks on us with compassion. He knows what it is to be in our shoes. He knows how hard it is to run from temptation. He's seen first-hand in those he loved failure. In fact, tied up in the word "gentle" is the understanding that he will deal with us perfectly. The deeper the anguish, the pain, the hurt, the brokenness, the sin, the gentler he becomes. He is there for us in the exact perfect way we need him to be. We cannot outsin his grace. It enlarges to encompass even our biggest failures.
At the same time, Jesus understands the destructive nature of sin even better than we do. He, alone, sees the full damage caused by sin. Even in our most self-effacing moments, we fail to grasp the entirety of the damage done. In our fallenness, we will always color our repentance with some amount of self-justification. Jesus looks on our sin and knows it's worse than we thought.
But rather than causing him to reject us, that knowledge of the depth of sin increases his compassion for us and his anger towards sin. He alone knows the havoc sin wreaks on his children. He will judge. But he will not judge the penitent. He already paid the price for our sins. Therefore when one takes up his offer of forgiveness, even with only a tiny glimpse of the damage done, his heart bursts with joy and love. That sacrifice has been made worth it.
And not only has Jesus paid the price in the past, he continues to make intercession for us today. Some see this as Jesus pleading for mercy from a harsh and retributive Father. This is not true. Jesus continuously brings us up to the Father and together they celebrate what he's done. Jesus is praying for us. And the Father is more than delighted to answer. Imagine that. He not only intercedes, Jesus is our advocate. He's on our side and he's making our case. This is his heart.
He is a true friend. The most true friend we will ever have. He pursues us while allowing us to pursue him. And it is a two-way relationship. We have the honor to be his friend. Incredible. He knows every broken part, every shameful secret, every act of unfaithfulness, every betrayal. Yet he loves. He despises sin for its warping effect on us. He intercedes for us. He makes our case. His joy is when we come to him. And he calls us "friend." Not simply that we can regard him as a friend. He looks at us and says, "Friend."
With all this focus on Christ, the temptation is to view him as "the good one." The Father is eternally indignant and must be pacified. The Spirit is around, but not doing much. This is so far from the truth. Everything that is true of Jesus is true of the Father and the Spirit. God the Father has the same heart. He, too, runs toward repentant souls with open arms. He does not need convincing. The Son advocates and intercedes because that is the job the Father gave him. The Spirit is the actual spirit of the Father. It is God. It's this loving, gracious, merciful friend in a form which can indwell us. It's God in us. Loving us and shaping us from the inside out. It's what makes God, God. It's the most intimate form of God.
The heart remains the same. Yesterday. Today. And Forever.
From childhood, we are raised with a view of God as eternally angry, sitting high above in judgment, ready to pin us to the ground with thunderbolts. We are tolerated. We are perpetual disappointments. We are charity cases.
This is not the heart of God.
He delights in a repentant child. He loves and welcomes sinners. The deeper the sin, the more grace to pour out on us. His greatest joy is to welcome us back into relationship with him. Think of the the Father of the Prodigal Son. He scans the horizon looking for the first sign of our return. And when we slink towards him, he runs towards us. He throws a party in our honor. That is the heart of God.
Anger and wrath are his "strange work." Necessary, but not his natural bent. His love requires justice. He hates sin. He knows the vast extent of the damage sin does. He cannot allow it to continue.
But his natural bent is love. We are his heart. His most natural desire is to embrace the repentant and rejoice. He must be provoked to anger. He naturally loves.
Why is this idea of God so strange to our ears. It's because we tend to see God as a bigger version of ourselves. We think, "If it was me, I'd be really mad. I might forgive, but I'd never forget." We anthropomorphize God. And we attribute our most sin-laden responses to him. How far off the mark is this! God, himself, tells us, "My ways are not your ways." He doesn't think or act like us. He's not just a better version of us, he's other. He responds in ways we can only hope for, but would never do ourselves. Our sinful nature justifies ourselves and condemns others. God has no sinful nature. He does not have vestiges of a sinful natures. He is not us, just redeemed. He is redemption. He does not need to justify himself, and he offers no condemnation to the repentant. This is simply not possible for a human. We cannot respond in this way. It goes against every fiber of our being. It goes with the grain of his being. It is God being most fully God.
He is gentle and lowly.
Ortlund ends with,
The world is starving for a yearning love, a love that remembers instead of forsakes. A love that isn't tied to our loveliness. A love that its down underneath our messiness. A love that is bigger than the enveloping darkness we might be walking through even today. A love of which even the very best human romance is the faintest of whispers. (168)
Christ offers us that love.
