Monday, March 14

Cardioversion – Hard Hearts and the Right Time and Rhythm

John’s Gospel gives us the most chapters about the days between Palm Sunday and Easter. Almost ½ of his Gospel is dedicated to that one week, plus a few days after Easter. Scripture and tradition seem to bear witness to the fact that John was the longest-lived of the 12 disciples. His Gospel is fourth and last in the order of the Gospels because it was probably written last. And because of that, John had the benefit of seeing how the church grew, or did not grow, in the decades after Jesus’ Passion. 

As John writes about Palm Sunday, the Holy Spirit inspires him to make a comment about the resistance in the hearts of people who had witnessed so many miracles from Jesus. John writes in chapter 12: “But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him…” (vs. 37). Several times Jesus spoke of the impotence of miraculous signs to bring faith (Matthew 9:5 & Luke 16:29 – 31). What brings faith is a broken and contrite heart, and the follow-up message that Jesus heals hearts with forgiveness.

The timing and potency of the heartbeat – when the heart is healthy – is a wonderful orchestration between the pumping of the upper chambers of the heart, followed by a brief yet carefully timed delay to permit blood to flow into the lower chambers of the heart where it is then pumped to either the lungs or the rest of the body. Many factors affect this timing. One of those is time itself… the aging process! Coronary artery disease and the loss of elasticity (hardening of the arteries) can play a role in the precise timing of the contraction of the atriums and ventricles. One of the various sensors that dictates how the heart beats, detects how the arteries are working.  If they are “hard,” they do not work as efficiently as they used to.

Over the decades between the events of Holy Week and the time the Holy Spirit inspired John to write, John witnessed a hardening in certain areas.  Unfortunately, much of that hardening occurred in the hearts of his very own people, God’s original chosen people, the Israelites or Jews. Isaiah prophesied that this would happen, and on Palm Sunday, John recalled one of those prophecies, mentioning a “hardening” that would occur in God’s people. John would write, “… They were not believing in him; that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled… He has blinded their eyes, and he hardened their hearts; lest they see with their eyes, and proceed with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.” (John 12:37b, 38a, 40)   When God reveals Himself “in Person” and people resist the “faith” (which really is not “faith” if you are seeing God in the flesh…) then God’s punishment is further hardening.

When people have arrhythmia, the proper rhythm of the upper and lower portions of the heartbeat is upset. Many people have a medical intervention to correct that, and it is called “cardioversion.” It is intriguing that the prophecy from Isaiah uses a similar word, “converted.”

I think one of the reasons people resist the Holy Spirit and are afraid to believe Jesus is, in fact, the Christ, is that they do not want to be “converted.” Some people who have arrhythmia are aware of it.  Others are not. Many people who are resistant to faith in Christ are unaware of their hardening. I also believe that they are unaware of their fear of being converted. The word “conversion” can mean to be someone different. Of course, Christ wants us to be someone better than who we are: forgiven, faithful, humble, trusting, sacrificial, loving, “born again!” None of these are bad changes.