Anybody who has read Wild at Heart or is familiar with John Eldredge has probably heard him contrast the likeness of Jesus to Mother Teresa and William Wallace of the film Braveheart:

Now – is Jesus more like Mother Teresa or William Wallace? The answer is… it depends. If you’re a leper, an outcast, a pariah of society whom no one has ever touched, if all you have ever longed for is just one kind word, then Christ is the incarnation of tender mercy. On the other hand, if you’re a Pharisee, one of those self-appointed doctrine police… watch out. On more than one occasion Jesus “picks a fight” with those notorious hypocrites.

One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God! But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”

But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?” This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did. (Luke 13:10-17 NLT)

Does Jesus tiptoe around the issue, so as not to “rock the boat”? Does he drop the subject in order to “preserve church unity”? Nope. He walks right into it, he baits them, he picks a fight. Christ draws the enemy out, exposes him for what he is, and shames him in front of everyone. The Lord is a gentleman???

(Wild at Heart, 24-25)

I love the tension in Eldredge’s analogy here. It makes me think about how Jesus would approach me. Do I play the role of religious Pharisee or spiritual leper? Self-righteous or broken? Proud or humbled? The moral legalist or the sinner in need of grace? How about you?