The shoe strings

And this was his message. "After me will come one more powerful than I. the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.( Mark 1:7)

John's confession that he was "not worthy to stoop down and untie" the thongs of sandals sounded like some idiomatic expression for the most humble down position. If you have to untie someone's shoestrings, you must bend down on your knee. And you should look at the shoes only. The bent down position with your eyes looking down could mean the extremely humbling position. John, who has lowered down himself, could become such special a person like that.

Perhaps it is one of Tolstoy's works. There is an old man who was doing shoe repairs in the half basement room. Through the window he used to look at the feet of all townspeople. It must be more real to say that he has been looking at the shoes on their feet. On Neighbor's feet and their shoes he put his mind, with an instant look at the shoes, he could figure out whose shoes they could be. One night in his dream Jesus came up to make a promise that he would come to visit next day.

I am going to stop now because you might know the rest of the story. Those ordinary people whom he met during the day were Jesus himself the story was saying. The person who used to look at the other's feet must be very humble. It was saying that Jesus came to that kind of a person. Maybe isn't it possible for us, who are losing our hearts to something else, not to recognize him?

According to the gospel of John (12:1-8), Mary, sister of Martha, poured an expensive perfume which could cost 300 denarion( a worth of year's wages), on Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair. People could not understand this. Jesus explained like this. "'Leave her alone,' Jesus replied. 'It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.'"(John 12:7) The gospel of Luke explains she had lived a sinful life. (Luke 7:39) People regarded her action as so strange. It looked so strange that the woman who had such bad reputation came up in public, and what was worse, she was crying and wet Jesus feet with her tears, and kissed them and poured perfume on them. But Jesus said this. “Her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”(Luke 7:47)

One day with his imminent death Jesus washed his disciples' feet. I heard that several churches are doing the ceremony of foot washing during the lent. It might mean they want to humble down themselves to the lowest place like Jesus. Even though it could be ceremonial, through this kind of ceremony I hope that we could enrich the spirituality of humility. But I am not sure that this kind of spirituality of shoe strings could happen in reality. It might be possible to lower yourself down to the earth in words, but actually it could not be that easy like words. For example, I don't think I could live to take care of old people with dementia with leaving behind everything that I am doing right now. I don't think I could be friends with dying people like Mother Teresa. Of course I could have self-consolation by making some kind of excuse like I have urgent things to do besides this. However, it is not the level of what I have a work to do or not but the level of spirituality. This is a question that I could live humble enough for anybody not to recognize me. This kind of spirituality could not be built up in a couple of days. For the spirit of Christ control us, we should start to empty ourselves in rather slow pace. Could it be possible for our lives to be enriched simply by untying the shoestrings of others if we turn our eyes into the down, not the above, as much as possible?

Lord, I like to learn the spirituality of humility. I believe it could happen only through the Lord Jesus who came from the heaven to the earth. Amen.

What is Power?

And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. (Mark 1:7)

Baptist John is a person to come up in the history to introduce Jesus Christ, not himself. All of his teachings and actions were toward Jesus Christ only. In today's text, he mentions the power of Jesus. He knew very well how powerless he was, but how great the power of Jesus was, being so different from his own essentially. So he confessed that in a figurative way he could not be able to untie the throngs of Jesus' sandals.

However, we could not help acknowledging how great the power of Baptist John was if we think more reasonably. Perhaps he moved around with more people than Jesus. Just like celebrity pastors these days. When we see the historical fact that Jewish leaders avoid the encounter with Baptist John in those days even though they tried to provoke a quarrel with Jesus, we could imagine how strong the authority of Baptist John could be. He was beheaded by King Herod but even the king was scared of John. Only Baptist John criticized his marriage to his brother's wife. Herod could not do anything but putting John into a prison. It was because Baptist John had total trust from the people, and what was more, King Herod might respect him deep inside of his mind. What did he mean, who had such a powerful reputation, when he was saying after him Jesus could have more power? What on earth was that power he meant?

People judge a person's power according to his achievement. If someone has power, it means he has achieved a lot. We regard someone who has a political power or has riches like that. Even the power of a pastor is judged that way. To increase the number of congregation could mean the power of a pastor. The power of competitiveness, which is the topic of these days, is a correct word to recognize the power of a person.

If we understand the power in this way, Jesus could be the most powerless person. His outward achievement was so tiny. Lots of people followed him for a while, but most of them dispersed so soon. The disciples are not much unlike them. Jesus brought up a big uproar at the temple of Jerusalem, but there was no guarantee it was being cleansed. Did he win over the dispute against the scholars of the laws? After Jesus the Laws were read in a different way? Through a historical viewpoint we cannot find out any progress for that. He did not liberate his people from Romans. He did not liberate the people from labor. At last he died on the cross powerlessly. The cross could be the extreme example of being powerless.

Now we should make it clear our notions what the idea of power is like. I am telling you that we should reconsider what is regarded as the power in this world means a real power. Real power should revive the world. The thing from the human beings has two sides all the time even though it is very big and great. It could revive and kill at the same time. Even though you achieve something, if it works as a power to revive in some area and to kill in other field, it could not be a real power. For example in the World cup for soccer, if there is a winning team, there must be a losing team. The first runner-up could mean that there must be the last. If human civilization enriched us, it could mean ecosystem was damaged. If you could not revive in a perfect condition it could not be a true power.

Do not misunderstand. I am not totally denying all the human actions for justice and peace, and all the scientific and artistic activities. We should put into action to revive life as much as we could. But we must not forget the fact that this world has immeasurable depth and width. We are the beings thrown into this unaccountable universe, not independent beings who confront this world. So in this kind of condition, we are nothing. Even we could not predict the result, it could be a nonsense for us to judge this world.

The power is the existential basis of God and it comes only from God, who created and will accomplish the world in eschatological way. In Jesus, this kind of things happened. The salvation of God has been accomplished in Jesus. How great does the power of John seem to be, it was still dependent upon the power of Jesus. We Christians are the people who rely on not our own power, but definitely on the power of God. The basic in the theory of justification is to realize how much helpless we are before the incident of salvation. Before the incident of salvation, the pastor with ten thousand congregations as well as a pastor with 10 people is powerless alike. Only Jesus is the power of God. We could taste a world of Christian spirituality, when this kind of things happens in accordance with our real life.

Oh Lord, we like to be a person who really does discriminate what real power means. Like Baptist John we like to expose the power of Jesus into this world. Have mercy on us who feel self-pity in our feeble ability. Amen.