Divine not Human

Divine not Human

For almost eternity it seemed they had been waiting.  The prophets of old had told their ancestors about a Messiah that would come and free them.  In the Old Testament books of Daniel, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, Hosea, Jeremiah, Micah the Psalms, and Isaiah all told the people of Israel of this Messiah. And John the Baptist. Though John appears in the New Testament, he was in fact the last of the Old Testament prophets.

Thousands of people had been streaming to the Jordan River. They had heard from their friends and families of this strange man.  His voice was loud and angry, challenging the religious establishment. Thousands were in awe. Perhaps John was this prophet their scriptures spoke to. 

As we learn though in the early sections of Mark, this wasn’t to be.  John challenged the Pharisees and the Scribes on their religion hypocrisy. He didn’t beg the people to repent, he demanded it. Many agreed and where baptized in the Jordan by John.  The Jews had always used water in their purification rites but this was different.  This marked a change a complete turning of the direction of ones life. 

John the Baptist stood among them and said; “ After me comes the one more powerful that I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” This was to be the Messiah, the one they had been waiting generations for. 

The idea of a Messiah had been forefront in the minds of the people of Israel for a very long time. Exile and slavery was the history of Israel.  Its people were looking for a saviour, someone who would rid them of their oppressors.  A king, a warrior, perhaps in the image of David.  One of David’s Psalms tells us in fact; “He will be a national hero who will vanquish the enemies of Israel”.

Imagine being there on the banks of the Jordan. You are one of hundreds perhaps thousands that have come to hear this voice in the wilderness.  Perhaps you have just been baptized yourself by John.  Standing on the shore, still wet, you see a man walk up and start to talk with John.  They then both go into the Jordan River, John baptizes him and from somewhere you hear a voice say; “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased”.  Was this the man, John had told them about? Was this the Messiah?

The disciples had that question too.  There was indeed something about this Jesus, something very special. But, a Messiah?   This was just one of the many questions they all had.  Since the first day, Jesus had called them to follow him, they had been struggling to understand.  Their fathers and grandfathers had spoken of  a Son of David who would rescue the people of Israel from their oppressors. He would be a king, a warrior.  But Jesus? A King?

The disciples are sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening intently to his every word.  “The Son of Man must undergo great sufferings, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and after three days rise again”. All of the disciples were certainly stunned by this.  There may have been two reasons for this.  The first; would a Messiah, a Saviour be subjected to this abuse, would he be killed? The second; I am pretty sure that the disciples in a very short time grew fond of their teacher. They became concerned at this talk of death. Most certainly Peter.

Peter, the disciple who in the future became the head of the Church, still had a lot to learn. His love of Jesus overshadowed everything.  Peter always brash and abrupt would have defended Jesus with physical force if needed. He pulled Jesus aside and told him what he had said was either wrong or that the disciples would save Jesus.  They would prevent his death. Jesus used this as a teaching moment, a very important one. Turning so that all the disciples could hear, he rebuked Peter, calling him Satan. Telling him to get behind him, “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” At that moment, Jesus was telling them that his way, his teachings, his very essence  was not from the world but from God.

Jesus continued, this time including the crowd gathered with the disciples. “If any of you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”. What Jesus was asking the people was to deny their self-trust, their self-sufficiency, to deny the feeling that they could handle their lives on their own. The cross represented to the people and to us a symbol our lives and its circumstances which humble us, expose us, shame us and show to us and the world our evil. Taking up your cross with full acceptance brings us to a place where we will be ready to accept the gift of the Divine. The full grace of God.

Yes this is radical, countercultural. This goes against everything the people listening to Jesus had known and learned.  It is the same with us.  If we continue with the reading, we hear Jesus say;  “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their  own life?” In today’s society we see survival of the fittest, unbridled profits, people ever striving for more of everything in pursuit of what they think is a good life. Some attain this, they have gained the whole world. But they have forgotten the Divine, they have forfeited their lives.

This is difficult to understand. It goes against nearly everything we have learned and experienced in our lives. It isn’t logical. We forget though that God’s mind is infinite, one that we cannot comprehend with our finite minds. Abram experienced this.

When he was 99 years old, God appeared to Abram.  God told Abram that he would be “the ancestor of a multitude of nations”. God also told Abram his name now would be Abraham. The name change in fact put further credence on God’s promise. In Hebrew, the name Abram means exalted father.  The name Abraham meanwhile means father of the multitude.  God also told Abraham that he would bless his wife Sarah.  “I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her”. 

Sarah, though was 90 years old.  She was past her child bearing years. If we continue a little past this reading, we learn Sarah actually laughed when she heard she was too bear a child.  She was not laughing at God, she was laughing with both joy and the absurdity at the prospect of what God had just told her husband. Though she was a very devout woman, Sarah was realistic too. She was 90 and Abraham was 99.  What God had told them made no sense. How could this even happen?

In both readings we see humans trying to understand the work of God. There is misunderstanding, incomprehension, and a sense that this makes no sense whatsoever. We are now in Lent. A time when we can ask ourselves, are our lives going away from God or towards God? Do we need to change to be of better service to God? It is also a time to renew our trust and faith in God.  We need to accept the countercultural ways of Jesus and God’s hard to believe promises. 

Some of what God does makes no sense to us. This is Divine work not human work. As humans we are in no way equipped to understand it.  Augustine once said: “We are talking about God; so why be surprised if you cannot grasp it? I mean, if you can grasp it, it isn’t God”. 

Be Still and Know That I Am God.