The Holy Spirit like a Dove

As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. (1:10)

The second phenomenon that happened on that moment Jesus got baptized was the Holy Spirit descending from heaven like a dove. Why did Mark describe the presence of the Holy Spirit as the shape of a dove? Considering the general idea that a dove stands for peace, Mark might allude to the fact that Jesus is a person who starts true peace in the world. If we consider Jesus' teaching like "be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves"(Matt. 10:16) for the basis of explanation, it might mean that Jesus must be such an innocent and sinless person.

Let's think about two more stories related with doves in the Old Testament. At the end of Noah's Flood, there appeared a dove. Because of a big flood for 40 days, every living creature except in the Noah's ark was wiped out from the earth, and finally the waters receded. After 7 months, the ark came to rest on the Mt. Ararat, and after 10 months the tips of the mountains emerged. After 40 days from that time, Noah opened the window of the ark and sent out a raven, because he wanted to know how much the water had receded. But the raven did not come back. So this time Noah sent out a dove. The dove did come back without finding a dry place to land on. 7 more days later he sent out the dove again. In the evening the dove came back to the ark with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. In 7 more days he sent out the dove again, and this time it did not return to him. (Genesis chapter 8) The dove with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak is a messenger for new life after a total destruction of all the living creatures owing to God's judgment. Maybe Jesus could be that kind of a person?

There is some passage in the Song of Songs. "How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves.” (Songs 1:15) What do the eyes of a dove look like? Sadness? Foolishness? Full of distress? Or a voluptuous glance? If we consider the Song of Songs is poems singing God's love ultimately through the love between lovers, the eyes of a dove could mean profound and pure love. Maybe is Mark saying that only Jesus is a person who can love the human beings truly?

Even though I brought up some examples related with the dove from the Old and the New Testament, in the today's text the dove itself is not that important. The dove is a kind of literary expression that describes the Holy Spirit in a visible way. The core of the story is the Holy Spirit, because Jesus' baptism is the incident of appearance of the Holy Spirit. But the meaning of this incident is not just in the fact that the Holy Spirit appears, but in the fact that Jesus is in accordance with the Holy Spirit. When we get baptized, the Holy Spirit is with us as it says, but when Jesus got baptism, he became one with the Holy Spirit.

We believe the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of Father God as well as of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the spirit to bring up life in this world, but also it is the spirit of Jesus Christ who lived as a son of a carpenter and died on the cross 2000 years ago. This incident of life is that of Jesus Christ.

Do you like to follow the spirit of peace? Then you should understand deeply who Jesus Christ is. If you like to participate with true joy, you should go deep inside of Jesus. If you really want to taste freedom and liberation, you should believe in Jesus Christ totally. Because the Holy Spirit and Jesus does not mean two, but one.

Lord, I believe Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are one. I believe that we could be a man of the Holy Spirit, by being one with Jesus Christ. Amen.

Heaven Being Torn Open

As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. (1:10)

According to the report in Mark's Gospel, there were three special happenings at the moment Jesus got baptized. First, heaven was torn open. Second, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove. The third, there was some hearings from heaven. Today's story is about the first happening.

It is said that heaven was torn open at that moment when Jesus was emerging out of the water after being soaked up. How on the earth was heaven divided? Is it possible for heaven to be torn open? When we could see the rays of the sun through the thick clouds, heaven looks like opening up, but the writer of Mark's Gospel did not seem to mean that kind of physical phenomenon. If you want to understand the expression of heaven being open, you should know first what heaven meant to the people in ancient times. According to the creation myth, on the second day God created heaven with dividing water from water. The gap between waters is a celestial sphere, that is heaven. If we follow this logic, before heaven was created, this world was full of water, and beyond heaven still water exists over there. In Noah's Big Flood, all the windows of heaven opened and water poured down through them. To the ancient people, heaven was such an unaccountable world that they could not help writing like that way.

The people in the New Testament age understood heaven as a hiding place of life. So they thought it was natural for God to be in heaven, and for Jesus to ascend to heaven. Before their eye the mystery of life was in accordance with the unreachable mystery of heaven. But today to the people who are boasting of very advanced biology and physics this kind of thoughts sounds very silly. However, that is not true. We are never more advanced than those. But rather in a sense that they relied themselves on mystery of life, they could be much more advanced spiritual people. Today our lives, destroying the mystery of life, are only being focused on the information of life, not looking at the mystery of life. Is it possible for us to enrich our lives in this way?

The description that heaven was being torn open when he came out of the water means that Jesus is the core of life. It does possibly mean that the mystery of life is opening up by Jesus. Every incident happened to Jesus mean heaven being torn open literally just like that expression. We get experiences of heaven being open through Jesus and put our fate on that. Heaven being open should happen right now at this moment in our daily lives. It means those life-opening experiences.

Lord, you are the way, the truth and the life. Through you I believe I got a life. Amen.