And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."(1:11)
There were two voices from heaven. One is "You are my Son" and the other is "with you I am well pleased." The first voice we meditated yesterday. Today we like to pay attention to the second one. What did the writer of Mark's Gospel like to say through the text "God is pleased with"?
The biggest problem for the Christians who have some kind of history for their faith is that they used to approch to the Bible texts only through the prefixed frame. They do not have time to think seriously to look through the Bible. Maybe there is no need to do that. They seemed to have such attitude to know everything through the repetitive Bible studies and preachings. Just like elementary students who copy their teachers to read a book. Under these circumstances the Bible does not open up in a fresh way to us. Let's read today's text to know why?
When you read the phrase that "I am pleased with you", what do you think? Maybe most Christians could think God is pleased with Jesus' baptism or with Jesus' starting his public life. Or God could be pleased with all of Jesus' personality or his fate. I am not saying that these are totally wrong ideas. But before to think like that, we should think the phrase "God is pleased" sounds very strange. Does it mean God has all emotions of joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure like humanbeings? Of course the Old Testament describes God as God of anger, and sometimes we see the description that he is laughing at.
In the age of Noah's flood, he was so angry because of serious sins of the humankinds that he wanted to destroy this world totally. And also God loves a person who he should love, and hates a person who he should hate one-sidedly. Is "Joy of God" for today's text similar to this?
The Greek mythological gods show much more humanly emotions than God in the Bible straightforwardly. What is worse, they did not stop fighting each other because of an amorous passion. Could we say that God in the Bible as well as Greek gods does act according to this kind of humanly emotions? Probably I might touch the problem that I could not solve. The contents of this theme are too broad for me to write in this short message. Now that I had started this topic, I like to point out some guidance for directions. It could be two directions. One is passive and the other is active.
In a passive way, it is evident that doctrine of Christology is not anthropomophism. I am telling you that God is not an absolute being, who has most extreme power with humanly emotions. He is not a God who gives more blessings when you listen to him, more punishments to the people who don't obey, as ususaally known to us. If you think God is a kind of the problem solver or a superman that must be definitely wrong image about God in Christology.
Positively speaking, God is not a person who is pleased, but joys itself. How could God, who is the ultimate foundation of everything, be differentiated from joy or peace? If we like to differentiate God like this way, it means we measure God by our ruler. It's like saying that mission for the whole world or buillding up the church is a joy of God. God and joy are ontologically in accord. Just like God and love are ontologically in accord with each other, God and his Sovereignty are of one accord. If we say joy could be God's soverignty, joy must be God's ontology.
Probably you might not be satisfied with theological explanation as above. I should make a little bit graceful conclusion. The fact that Jesus' baptism and his incident as well as his fate might be the pleasure for God means that Jesus Christ is in accordance with God himself. And it was described as His son or His joy. Therefore, today we should explain to the people in the world why the incidents of Jesus could be God's pleasure, and then we have responsibility to live on that level.
Lord, you are the joy itself. Worldly or religious achievements cannot be the ultimate joy, but your existence itself is. We like to participate in this kind of joy.
There were two voices from heaven. One is "You are my Son" and the other is "with you I am well pleased." The first voice we meditated yesterday. Today we like to pay attention to the second one. What did the writer of Mark's Gospel like to say through the text "God is pleased with"?
The biggest problem for the Christians who have some kind of history for their faith is that they used to approch to the Bible texts only through the prefixed frame. They do not have time to think seriously to look through the Bible. Maybe there is no need to do that. They seemed to have such attitude to know everything through the repetitive Bible studies and preachings. Just like elementary students who copy their teachers to read a book. Under these circumstances the Bible does not open up in a fresh way to us. Let's read today's text to know why?
When you read the phrase that "I am pleased with you", what do you think? Maybe most Christians could think God is pleased with Jesus' baptism or with Jesus' starting his public life. Or God could be pleased with all of Jesus' personality or his fate. I am not saying that these are totally wrong ideas. But before to think like that, we should think the phrase "God is pleased" sounds very strange. Does it mean God has all emotions of joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure like humanbeings? Of course the Old Testament describes God as God of anger, and sometimes we see the description that he is laughing at.
In the age of Noah's flood, he was so angry because of serious sins of the humankinds that he wanted to destroy this world totally. And also God loves a person who he should love, and hates a person who he should hate one-sidedly. Is "Joy of God" for today's text similar to this?
The Greek mythological gods show much more humanly emotions than God in the Bible straightforwardly. What is worse, they did not stop fighting each other because of an amorous passion. Could we say that God in the Bible as well as Greek gods does act according to this kind of humanly emotions? Probably I might touch the problem that I could not solve. The contents of this theme are too broad for me to write in this short message. Now that I had started this topic, I like to point out some guidance for directions. It could be two directions. One is passive and the other is active.
In a passive way, it is evident that doctrine of Christology is not anthropomophism. I am telling you that God is not an absolute being, who has most extreme power with humanly emotions. He is not a God who gives more blessings when you listen to him, more punishments to the people who don't obey, as ususaally known to us. If you think God is a kind of the problem solver or a superman that must be definitely wrong image about God in Christology.
Positively speaking, God is not a person who is pleased, but joys itself. How could God, who is the ultimate foundation of everything, be differentiated from joy or peace? If we like to differentiate God like this way, it means we measure God by our ruler. It's like saying that mission for the whole world or buillding up the church is a joy of God. God and joy are ontologically in accord. Just like God and love are ontologically in accord with each other, God and his Sovereignty are of one accord. If we say joy could be God's soverignty, joy must be God's ontology.
Probably you might not be satisfied with theological explanation as above. I should make a little bit graceful conclusion. The fact that Jesus' baptism and his incident as well as his fate might be the pleasure for God means that Jesus Christ is in accordance with God himself. And it was described as His son or His joy. Therefore, today we should explain to the people in the world why the incidents of Jesus could be God's pleasure, and then we have responsibility to live on that level.
Lord, you are the joy itself. Worldly or religious achievements cannot be the ultimate joy, but your existence itself is. We like to participate in this kind of joy.
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