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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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God Revealed |
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Romans
3:6, Mark 1:1-11 Second
Sunday after Epiphany January
17, 2010
If you go to a live theatre you will sit before a large curtain
that separates the audience from the stage.
The curtain hides the actors and sets from you.
You hear sounds from behind it.
You have read the program and think you know a little about the
play, but the costumes, the sets, the way the actors will play their
parts, the quality of the orchestra's performance on this night is unknown
to you, even if you have seen the play several times.
Only when the curtain rises can you see the play.
All things are open and revealed to you then.
Many people think God is behind a curtain.
They hear sounds behind it. They
read and hear things about Him, yet it seems to them that the curtain
remains. I say this by way of
analogy, for, as we have seen in our study of Romans, there is no curtain.
God is clearly revealed for all to see.
Humanity's problem is not that God is hidden, but that we reject
what we see of God. God has
raised the curtain, and nowhere is the knowledge of God so clearly seen as
in Christ as He is revealed in Scripture.
The revelation of God in Christ is a major issue in Mark 1:1-11.
Our text is a passage we have read many times.
You probably have a mental image of the event in your mind.
John is baptizing people in preparation for the revelation of the
Messiah, when Jesus comes to him. John
is shocked. "I have need
to baptized of thee," he says to Jesus.
Yet, because Jesus tells him to, John baptizes Christ.
It is a task I am sure John performs with fear and trembling, for
there is a natural reverence and holy awe that overcomes us when we
realise we are in the presence of the Living God.
Moses hid his face at the burning bush, for he was "afraid to
look upon God" (Ex.3:6). The
nation of Israel trembled at the foot of Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:16). Isaiah
was filled with holy fear when he encountered God in the Temple (Is. 6:5).
Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, "was troubled, and fear fell
upon him" when he saw the angel in the Temple (Lk. 1:12).
When the angel appeared to Mary she was so afraid that the angel
had to say, "Fear not" (Lk. 1:30). The shepherds in the fields
around Bethlehem were "sore afraid" and the angel had to say,
"Fear not: for, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy" (Lk.
2:9-10). The hands of the Baptist must be trembling and his heart
nearly failing within him as he touches the robes and baptizes the Son of
God. Yet, imagine how John feels when the Heavenly voice thunders forth,
"Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
The casual familiarity that characterises the contemporary approach
to worship is unknown in the Bible. Let
us learn a holy reverence for God and for the things of God.
Now let us turn to a consideration of the Father's words to Christ,
"Thou art my beloved Son."
What does it mean that Jesus is the Son of God?
First, it means Jesus is fully God.
"Son" does not mean Christ came into existence through
some kind of Heavenly "birth."
He certainly did not come into existence when He was conceived in
the virgin's womb and born in the animal shed in Bethlehem.
"Son" means He was, is, and always will be, as the Nicene
Creed says, "Light of Light, Very God of very God," and "of
one substance with the Father." Let
me point out that the word, "very" as used in the creed, does
not mean "much" as in, "I am very hungry." It is used the way it is used in many places in the New
Testament, as when Jesus says, "Verily, verily I say unto thee."
In such passages, "verily" means "truly." In
the same way the Creed is saying Jesus is true God of true God.
Likewise when the Creed says Christ is of "one substance with
the Father" it is saying He is of one being with God.
This is absolutely faithful to the Bible's teaching about Christ. "I and my Father are one," Jesus said to the
Pharisees in John. 10:30. Some
people miss what Jesus was saying in this verse.
They think Jesus simply meant He was one with God as a man might be
one with a political party or with a philosophy.
But the Pharisees knew that was not the Lord's meaning, for a few
verses after this we find them ready to stone Him as a blasphemer. Why do
they call Him a blasphemer? Because He made Himself God (Jn. 10:33).
They understood that Jesus was claiming to be nothing less than God
Himself. Jesus is
God. The whole point of the Gospel of John is to reveal to us that "In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God" (Jn. 1:1), and, "the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."
It is very significant that in the Greek, for the New Testament was
originally written in Greek, John 1:1 does not say, "and the Word was
God," it says, "and God was the Word."
The whole point is to say that the Word who was made flesh is none
other than God Himself. God
was the Word; the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; Jesus is the
Word who was made flesh; therefore, Jesus is God. That is the line of reasoning in these verses.
That is the point of the entire Gospel of John, even of all
Scripture. It was all written
to bring us to the conclusion, found in John 20:31, "that
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye might have life through His name."
Second, to be the Son of God means Jesus is the heir of all things.
In the Old Testament the eldest son received a double portion of
the inheritance; the remainder was divided among the rest of the sons. But Jesus is the only Son of God. This means all things are His.
All of creation, all of Heaven, all people, all souls, everything
is His. He is the sole
"heir." This does
not mean God the Father will pass away. That
can never happen, for God dwells in eternity.
He transcends time and space and death.
He exists from all eternity in the past and to all eternity in the
future. In fact, past and future are meaningless when applied to God, for
they are human ways of recognising time, but God is the creator of time. Time exists in God; God does not exist in time.
So all things are eternally "present" to God.
When we speak of Christ inheriting all things we refer to His
complete victory and universal rule of all things in Heaven and earth. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that
Christ is Lord.
Third, as the Son of God, Jesus is the revelation of God.
It is a major part of His mission to reveal God to us.
Thus Jesus tells us, "he
that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (Jn.14:9).
He came to tell us about God (Jn. 1:18).
Hebrews 1:1-2 tells us that God spoke to us in the past through
prophets, but has now spoken to us in his Son, the heir of all things.
It is important that we dwell on these things for a while this
morning. It is important that
we remember that Jesus, the Son of God is become flesh, the heir and owner
of all things, and the revelation of God.
It is important because we need to understand that God said, "This
is my beloved Son." Jesus
is the only begotten Son. He
is the only One. He is unique
among all. When I think of
this I think of another time the voice of God spoke audibly to people
about Jesus. It was at the transfiguration of Christ.
Jesus was revealed in His Heavenly glory, with Moses and Elijah
standing by Him. And the confused and frightened disciples wanted to build
an altar to each of them. It
was as though they could not recognise the difference between the prophets
and the Son of God. So the
voice of God thundered from Heaven again, "This is my beloved Son:
hear Him." God grant us
grace and wisdom to hear Christ. Amen.
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