With a heart of stone, you'll be well protected

"The Last Supper with Judas," Curtis Neeley

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot.

After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.”

- John 13:21-32

It’s easier not to care. It’s easier on our hearts. It’s easier to go straight to the entertainment news, or ignore that special collection they’re taking up, or make a cynical comment instead of a constructive one. I think I’ve done all three of these things in the past few days alone! But what happens when we don’t care? If Matthew 25 is any indication, we fail to come to the aid of Jesus Himself.

There’s a longing in the heart to return to Eden, to go back to a state of innocence before we were as human as we are now. That longing hurts. Is it any wonder that we build walls around our hearts, or that we simply let them calcify?

Here’s Cher with what may be her finest song: “Heart of Stone.” The lyrics are here.

In a strange twist for a pop song, the real lyrical clincher can be found buried in the background vocals as the song begins to fade: “With a heart of stone, love’s not resurrected.” There are the consequences. There’s the down side to living a life of self-protection.

Judas will use his heart of stone to betray Jesus, and Jesus will go to the cross. All will seem lost. Yet, somewhere in the background, behind all the noise and hate, a seed will be planted. In and among hearts of stone throughout the world, love will be resurrected in the hearts of those who continue to let love in. Love doesn’t enter or take root without pain. Those with hearts of stone have stopped believing it’s worth it.

And what hope is there for those with hearts of stone? The prophet Ezekiel has God giving this reassurance: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (36:26). So all is never lost. God will continue to act. God will continue to reach out to those of us who fear we will never feel again, and resurrection will take root once more.

I want to be good, but good is being simple ...

So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.

Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.

- Deuteronomy 10:12-22

“Circumcise the foreskin of your heart?” Now that’s a really disturbing mixed metaphor! Yet I get it. Don’t just mark yourself as God’s own in an outward way. Change your heart. Let go of your stubborn refusal to become vulnerable and human and less than Godlike. Understand the role you play. Know your place.

Knowing our place isn’t very popular. To our ears, it smacks of repression. It sounds like God doesn’t want us to be the best we can be. But let’s try it another way: “You are God, and I am not.” Knowing our place means being humble. It’s doesn’t mean underachieving. It means being realistic about our realm of influence.

It means relaxing and enjoying the party, instead of constantly trying to look like the coolest kid in the room.

The prophet Ezekiel writes at one point that God will replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. You can’t circumcise a heart of stone. You can’t change it. It is unyielding. We need squishy hearts, as the Judybats put it in their 1993 song “Being Simple.” This song presents us with the entire dilemma of choosing to be vulnerable:

I want to be good/
But good is being simple/
Simple is forgetting/
And I simply can’t forget.
I want to be great/
But greatness is giving/
Giving leaves me empty/
Oh great emptiness

Do we need to forget in order to let go of our stubbornness? If so, what do we need to forget?

Does giving leave us empty? Is that a misconception of the stubborn heart? Or do we need to become emptier in order to receive God?