Tawa Baptist

Present

Scriptures: Psalm 46 & Mark 4:35-41

Video Link: https://youtu.be/5qVW-vn7Gm8

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God in the chaos
  • God in the city
  • God among the nations
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone. How is this lockdown going for you?

I imagine some of you will be busier than ever and others may have a bit more time on your hands. Maybe you have had the opportunity to play some board games, like Scrabble. Scrabble is a bit like life in that you never know what letters you are going to get.

Imagine you are starting the game with these seven letters? T R S E E P N

This is a fortunate start because you have some vowels. You could spell the word PRESENT.

It is most fortunate indeed that we are able to spell the word ‘PRESENT’. That fits quite nicely with our message today. This week we focus on Psalm 46, one of the songs of the Sons of Korah. In a nut shell, Psalm 46 is an affirmation that God is present.  Let’s read Psalm 46 together now…

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Psalm 46 is punctuated with reminders that the Lord Almighty is with us. God is present. God is present in the chaos. God is present in the city. And God is present among the nations. 

God is present in the chaos:

Now as providence would have it, the next player in our game of Scrabble has these letters: STUREJF. What word can we make with this lot?

One of the cool things about Scrabble is that you can use the letters the other players provide. This enables you to spell words you might not otherwise be able to spell. As keen Christians you will automatically notice the letter J and think, ‘I wonder if we can spell JESUS’.

And yes, with the letters we have, we could spell JESUS, if we use the S in PRESENT. However, under the traditional rules of Scrabble, you are not allowed to use people’s names, so we will have to think of another word.   

STUREJF enables us to spell rust. But with the T on the end of PRESENT we can spell TRUST. Verses 1-3 of Psalm 46 sound a note of defiant trust.

Psalm 46 starts, in verse 1, with God. God comes first.

Verses 2-3 describe primordial chaos, with the earth giving way and the mountains falling into the sea. Earthquakes and storms and floods basically. But before the chaos, there is God.

Verse 1 says that God is our refuge and strength. A refuge is a shelter or a sanctuary, a safe place. God is our safe place. As our refuge God protects us from the chaos out there in the world.  

God is also our strength. While refuge has to do with protection from external threats, strength has to do with our inner person. Strength is about mental and emotional resilience or fortitude.

Or to think of it another way, to say that God is our refuge is to say that we are within God, like being in a life boat or in a safe house or in a fortress. And to say that God is our strength is to say God is within us; in our heart and mind.

In John 14:20 Jesus talked about being in God and God being in us through him, when he said to his disciples: “On that day you will realise that I am in the Father and you are in me, and I am in you.”

To be a Christian is to be ‘in Christ’, which means Jesus is our refuge, our strong tower. To be a Christian also means having Christ live in us, in our heart and mind; which means Jesus is our inner strength, like the reinforcing steel in concrete, or better still, like the backbone in your body holding everything together but at the same time allowing flexibility. 

Because God is ever-present in the chaos and the storm, we do not need to be afraid. The opposite of fear is trust. Trust is the foundation of life really. Trust gives us something firm to stand on. When our trust (our foundation) is in God, then we have nothing to fear because our foundation cannot be moved.

Refuge and strength flow out of trust. We can use the R in TRUST to spell REFUGE and the S to spell STRENGTH.

The idea of the earth giving way and the mountains falling into the sea is quite real for us today. This generation is all too aware of global warming and the effects of climate change. We see images of flooding and earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and forest fires almost every week on the news.

Our hope of a better future is under constant bombardment.

In Psalm 46 the Sons of Korah stir us to defy despair and, through trust in God, find refuge and strength and security. Yes, evil threatens. But ultimately God is in control. God is present in the chaos and God is present in the city.

God is present in the city:

Returning to our game of Scrabble; if you want bonus points, you need to get a triple word score. We happen to have an H right beside a triple word score. What can we do with the letters WITRINQ?

Well, we know we can’t do anything with the Q because you usually need a U if you want to make a word with a Q. But we could spell WITHIN. That would give us 48 points. Smashing it. 

From verse 4 of Psalm 46 we read how God is present in the city…

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.

The city in view here is Jerusalem. For the Jews of ancient times God dwelt within the city, because the Lord Almighty had his temple there. The holy place is another way of talking about the temple. This picks up the theme of God being present with his people.

That phrase where it says, God will help her at break of day, is a reference to the city under siege. In ancient times enemy armies would attack and besiege a city at dawn, at day break. This enabled the enemy soldiers to get close to the walls while it was still dark.

At break of day reminds us of the dawn raids in New Zealand during the 1970’s. I imagine the Pasifika community felt under siege at that time.  

The Sons of Korah and the other worshippers look to God for help in the time of a siege, rather than military might.

According to Wikipedia, Jerusalem has been attacked 52 times and besieged 23 times during its long history. It was destroyed twice, and both times rebuilt.

But Psalm 46 isn’t primarily about the earthly Jerusalem. Psalm 46 is really more about the heavenly Jerusalem. The eternal city of God that can never be conquered or destroyed.

The river whose streams make glad the city of God reminds us of the pool of Siloam, which is a gentle flowing stream supplying Jerusalem with water during a time of siege.

Taking a less literal (more poetic) view, the river of God’s city is a metaphor for God’s provision and blessing. Christians may see here a connection with the Holy Spirit who gives life and cleansing to God’s people.

In Revelation 22, at the end of the Bible, we read about the heavenly Jerusalem;

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 

And how the nations of the world need that healing.

The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

This refrain is repeated, like the chorus of the song, in verses 7 & 11. Martin Luther, the great reformer of the 16th Century, found inspiration for his hymn, A mighty fortress is our God, from this line and indeed from the whole of Psalm 46.

A fortress speaks again of refuge, protection and security from external threats.

The expression, God of Jacob, is perhaps a subtle way of reminding the worshippers of God’s grace throughout their nation’s history. God is with his people in the city of Jerusalem, not because of any virtue on their part, but because He is gracious and kind.  

We might not have cities with walls, like they did in ancient times, but we do understand what it is to be under siege.

The Covid virus besieges us in a number of ways. Our movement and contact with others is restricted, with good reason. Not only that but some may feel besieged with unpleasant thoughts and feelings.

By comparison with the rest of the world though, we (in NZ) are pretty well off really. God has been with New Zealand in this siege, not because we are more deserving than other countries but simply because the Lord is gracious.  

We have watched in sadness this week while events have unfolded in and around Kabul airport, as people try to flee Afghanistan. We pray for God to be present in the chaos of that city. We pray too for the Lord Almighty to be present among the nations, as world leaders seek to help the vulnerable. 

God is present among the nations:

Sometimes the letters you get, in Scrabble, enable you to make more than one word. With the letters SLVEACE, for example, we can make ACE, LEASE, LEAVE and SLAVE. And if we use the some of the letters already on the board from the word PRESENT, we have even more options.

When I have the choice I prefer to go with the word which is more edifying and that will open up more options on the board, even it doesn’t get me as many points.

I could make the word SLAVE, which would give me 18 points because it is a double word score. Or, if I borrow a letter from the word PRESENT (already on the board) I could make PEACE, which only gives me 11 points.

But I prefer peace to slavery and so I choose peace.    

Peace is what we long for. Peace in our inner being, peace in our personal relationships and peace in our international relations.    

Verses 8-10 of Psalm 46 tell us that God alone has the power to end war and bring peace…

Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

Then in verse 10 the Lord God Himself speaks…

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

More often than not we read only half of what God says here. We focus on the first part where the Lord says, “Be still and know that I am God”, and we stop there. We (in the West) tend to think this means quieting our mind, being personally still (on the inside) and meditating on God.

That is certainly an important part of the meaning here. Most of us could well do with more stillness and less busy-ness in our lives. Lockdown is a kind of forced stillness. If only we could lean into a slower pace and give more mental space to God. 

But there’s more at stake here than our personal stillness. The second part of what God says in verse 10 is: “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

This phrase, in the context of verses 8-9, makes it clear that the stillness in view here is more than inner peace. It is international, global peace. Peace among the nations.  

Earlier in the service we heard a reading from Mark 4 retelling how Jesus calmed the storm on the lake. God’s word, “Be still” (in Psalm 46), is actually a command to end war and violence, much like Jesus’ word, “Be still”, in Mark 4, was a command for the wind and waves to stop.  

The Bible teaches that justice is the prerequisite to peace and wisdom is the prerequisite to justice. There is no real peace without wise justice. What happened with the bombings in Kabul a few days ago was not wise or just.

To exalt the Lord is to lift up his wisdom and justice, to follow His way. Jesus shows us the way of God. When God is exalted among the nations there is peace.

Sometimes in the game of Scrabble you get letters which are hard to use, like an X or a Q. It always feels satisfying when you can put these less common letters to good use.

See what happens when you choose peace instead of slavery. You allow room to use your X to spell EXALTED and your Q to spell QUIET. And you are able to sneak in a BE STILL also.

Conclusion:

When we look at all that is going on in the world today; extreme weather events, a global pandemic, the rise of extremism and acts of terror, wars and rumours of wars, we may feel like the disciples in the storm in Mark 4, overwhelmed, confused and anxious.

We need to remember that, just as Jesus was present in the boat with his disciples in that storm, so too God is present with us in every circumstance we face in this world (whether good or bad).

And just as Jesus was able to calm the storm on the lake with one word, so too God is able to change things very quickly when He decides.

Psalm 46 shows us how to look at the reality of this world through the lens of eternity. The violence and turmoil of this world will not last forever. Ultimately God’s peace will reign. God’s plan is to establish heaven on earth. The best is yet to come.

Therefore, we do not need to be afraid. We can trust God for he is our refuge and our strength. God is present among the nations. God is present in this city of Wellington and God is present in the chaos; present to restore order. Best of all, through the Spirit of Jesus, God is present within your very soul.   

Let us pray…

Mighty God, loving Father, help us to understand that, through Jesus, we are in you and you are in us. Keep us mindful of the fact that our life depends on you and that nothing can separate us from your love, therefore we do not need to be afraid. May you be exalted in all the earth. May your wise justice be lifted up that peace would reign. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. 

Look after yourself and look after each other.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Do you have a favourite board game? What is it and why?
  • What does it mean that God is our refuge? What does it mean that God is our strength? How are these terms similar? How are they different?
  •  In what ways does Psalm 46 speak to the situation of our world today? Is God saying anything to you personally through this psalm?
  • Why is the term ‘break of day’ significant?
  • What might the river of the city of God refer to, both literally and poetically? What light does Revelation 22 shed on the river of God’s city?
  •  Discuss / reflect on verse 10 of Psalm 46. What does this verse mean to you? What does it mean in the context of the psalm? (E.g. what does “Be still” mean? How is God exalted in all the earth?)
  • Take some time to reflect on the ways God is present for you? Give thanks to him for this.
Tawa Baptist

He Must Be God

Scripture: Mark 2:1-12, Mark 4:35-41, Mark 6:30-44, Ezekiel 34:11-15

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Mark 2:1-12 – Saviour (Christology from below & above)
  • Mark 4:35-41 – Creator (A pathway to faith in Christ)  
  • Mark 6:30-44 – Shepherd (Functionally and ontologically divine)
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

There is a phrase used in law known as prima facie. It means ‘at first sight’ or ‘on the face of it’. Sometimes things seem quite simple and straight forward, based on first appearances, but when we dig a little deeper and look beneath the surface we find there is more to the picture than meets the eye.    

Today we continue our ‘Anthems’ series. In this series we are looking at the lyrics of one hymn or Christian worship song each week to see how that song informs our thinking about God and how it connects with Scripture and the heritage of our faith.

The song we are looking at this morning is called He Must Be God. Many of you will recognise this song by the chorus, where we sing ‘How cool is that’. The lyrics were written by Bryson Smith, while Philip Percival wrote the music. It was published by Emu Music Australia in 2003.

I’ve chosen He Must Be God for this week’s message because it is Ascension Sunday, a day in the church calendar when we give special attention to Jesus’ exaltation (his ascension) to heaven. Prima facie, or at first sight, He Must Be God seems like a simple kids’ song. But, when we dig a little deeper, we find there’s quite a bit going on beneath the surface.

He Must Be God presents three stories about Jesus from the gospel of Mark and uses these to make the case that Jesus wasn’t just a man, he was also God.  

Mark 2:1-12 – Salvation

The song’s first verse and chorus reads…

Jesus healed a paralysed man who was brought to him.
Jesus healed him, so he could show: He forgives our sin.
How cool is that! How cool is that! He told the man to pick up his mat. 
He must be God ‘cause he did that, How cool is that!

This recalls Mark 2, verses 1-12, where Jesus heals a man who was paralysed. This man was carried to Jesus, on a mat, by his friends. When they arrived at the house where Jesus was staying they couldn’t get in because of the crowd. So they climbed on the roof, dug a hole and lowered their friend down to Jesus.

The friends wanted Jesus to heal the man, so he could walk again but Jesus had a broader more comprehensive plan of salvation in mind. Jesus wants to heal the whole person, body & soul. From verse 5 of Mark 2 we read…

5 Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

6 Some teachers of the Law who were sitting there thought to themselves, 7 “How does he dare talk like this? This is blasphemy! God is the only one who can forgive sins!”

8 At once Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said to them, “Why do you think such things? 9 Is it easier to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’? 10 I will prove to you, then, that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, 11 “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

12 While they all watched, the man got up, picked up his mat, and hurried away. They were all completely amazed and praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

What we notice in this passage is that Jesus does some things that only God can do and each of these things is an act of salvation.

Firstly, Jesus says to the man, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ We don’t know what this man had done wrong. But we do know that any sin is an offence to God and only God can grant a pardon. As human beings we can forgive people. We can release them from a debt they may owe us. This means we stop reminding ourselves and them of what they have done wrong. But that is not the same thing as divine forgiveness. God’s forgiveness carries more weight, more authority, more mana. God forgives in the way a judge or a king pardons a criminal.

Imagine someone steals your car, takes it for a drunken joy ride and smashes it into a power pole, before getting caught. You can forgive them. You can say, I’m not going to hold this against you. I’m not going to require you to repay me for wreaking my car. But your forgiveness doesn’t erase their guilt under the law. They may still need to face a court hearing and possibly go to jail. In that situation only the judge can pardon them under the law.

When Jesus told the man his sins were forgiven he was doing something only God had the authority to do – he was pardoning the man, giving him a get out of jail free card. To the teachers of the law, who were essentially lawyers, it appeared (prima facie) that Jesus had overstepped his jurisdiction and they thought to themselves, 7 “How does he dare talk like this? This is blasphemy! God is the only one who can forgive sins!”

Blasphemy was a big deal for the Jews at that time in their history. Blasphemy means to show contempt or disrespect for God and was punishable by death.

Of course there have been many people in human history who thought they were God. So Jesus proved he had divine authority by healing the man, physically. When the man picked up his mat and walked off everyone praised God because they knew only God could pull off a miracle like that.              

I said before that the song, He Must Be God, appears quite simple, prima facie. But when we dig a little deeper we find there is more going on. The technical word, that experts use, to describe what this song is doing is Christology. Christology is the study of the identity and mission of Jesus Christ.

Throughout the past 2000 years there have been (broadly speaking) two main approaches to doing Christology. That is, ‘Christology from below’ and ‘Christology from above’. [1]

Christology from below has its basis in human history. It says that statements of faith about Jesus the Messiah find their proper foundation in actual events in history. In other words, if we want to know who Jesus is and what he came to do we have to start with the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and work.   

The song He Must Be God clearly uses a Christology from below approach. It looks at three historical accounts from the gospels and works out who Jesus is from that. Jesus saved a man from both his sins and his paralysis. Only God could do that, therefore Jesus must be God.    

The other approach to understanding Jesus is Christology from above. This approach says that we know who Christ is by our personal experience of him now, in the present. For example, the Holy Spirit descends from above and causes us to realise the truth about Jesus.

Now it’s not a case of either/or. With Christ it is a case of both/and. We need both history and personal experience to know Jesus. If you can imagine your faith in Jesus as a sailing ship, then history is the hull and deck of the boat on which you stand and personal experience is the sail, which the wind of God’s Spirit fills. Without the deck of history your faith sinks. Without the sail of personal experience your faith is stagnant, going nowhere.

I like what Stanley Grenz says. “Unless it is true on historical grounds that Jesus came forth from the grave, we have no certainty that there is a living Christ who encounters us in the present.” [2]  In other words, the historical basis for Jesus’ identity is essential for a claim to experience the presence of Christ now.

Mark 4:35-41 – Creation

Returning to the song He Must Be God. The first verse presents Jesus as Saviour, while the second verse shows us Jesus in the role of Creator. Salvation and creation are God’s business. Verse 2 of the song reads…

Jesus calmed a terrible storm while he was at sea.
Jesus calmed it, so he could say “Fear not, trust in me.”
How cool is that! How cool is that! He spoke a word – the waves went dead flat 
He must be God ‘cause he did that, How cool is that!

This recalls Mark chapter 4, where Jesus tells his disciples to go across to the other side of the lake in a boat. In this passage we notice some signs of Jesus’ divinity.

From verse 37 of Mark 4 we read…

37 Suddenly a strong wind blew up, and the waves began to spill over into the boat, so that it was about to fill with water. 38 Jesus was in the back of the boat, sleeping with his head on a pillow. The disciples woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to die?”

39 Jesus stood up and commanded the wind, “Be quiet!” and he said to the waves, “Be still!” The wind died down, and there was a great calm. 40 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Why are you frightened? Do you still have no faith?” 41 But they were terribly afraid and began to say to one another, “Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Mark’s account of Jesus calming the waters reminds us of the creation account in Genesis 1, where God brings order to the chaos. In Genesis 1 God makes the world functional for human beings and other creatures simply by speaking. He utters the divine word and it is done. Let there be light. Let there be sky. Let there be land and so on. 

We see Jesus doing a similar thing in Mark 4 when he tells the wind to be quiet and the waves to be still. What we notice here is that Jesus speaks directly to the wind and waves as one who knew them personally. Jesus doesn’t ask God to calm the storm, rather Jesus rebukes the wind and waves and they obey him. This is something only God can do.

In Psalm 104 we read, “But at your rebuke [O Lord] the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took flight”.

And in Psalm 107, “The Lord stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves and the sea were hushed.”

Interestingly the disciples are more afraid after Jesus has calmed the storm. It is natural for human beings to be terrified in the presence of God. Jesus had just demonstrated divine power over the forces of nature and yet the disciples hadn’t quite made the connection, that Jesus is God. 

About 500 years ago the church went through a great reformation in thinking and practice. One of the ideas to come out of this Reformation was a threefold concept of faith. [3]

Faith begins with a knowledge of the history of Jesus – hearing the gospel in other words. That’s phase 1.

This historical knowledge then brings assent or agreement that Jesus is divine. That’s phase 2.

But knowledge and agreement must translate to practical trust in Jesus, otherwise what’s the point. Trust is phase 3.  

Implicit to all three phases is the work of the Holy Spirit. Faith is a gift of the Spirit. It is the Spirit who puts us in the right place at the right time to hear the gospel and receive the knowledge about Jesus. Likewise, it is the Spirit who helps us to make the logical connection from knowledge to agreement that Jesus is divine. And it is the Spirit who helps us to trust Jesus day by day.

While the Reformation’s three step process to faith in Jesus is helpful, it is not the only way to faith in Jesus. Not everyone comes to faith through the mind. The Holy Spirit is not limited to just one pathway to the human soul. The Holy Spirit can create faith in a variety of ways. So if your pathway to faith in Jesus looks different to the Reformation pathway then that’s okay. Whatever pathway the Spirit leads you on, the goal is to trust Jesus.

In verse 40 of Mark 4, after Jesus has calmed the storm, he says to his disciples, “Why are you frightened? Do you still have no faith?”

The disciples had knowledge about Jesus. They had seen many of the miraculous God stuff that Jesus had done but that knowledge had not yet translated to an agreement, in their minds, that Jesus is God.  

The risk with the Reformation’s three step process to faith through the mind is that people may think their faith is whole when in fact they have only completed one or two steps. As we read in the book of James chapter 2: What good is it if a person claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? …You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that and shudder.  …As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

The song He Must Be God describes the first two steps of faith through the pathway of the mind. That is, knowledge and agreement. Jesus calmed the storm therefore, based on that knowledge, we can agree he must be God. But the next step of trusting Jesus (which is normally the hardest part) has to be worked out when we are in the storms of daily life.  

Mark 6:30-44 – Shepherd

The first verse of the song He Must Be God presents Jesus as Saviour. The second verse reveals Jesus as Creator and the third verse shows us Jesus as the divine Shepherd. Verse 3 of the song reads…

Jesus fed a very big crowd who’d no food to eat.
Jesus fed them, so he could show He’s all that we need.
How cool is that! How cool is that! From all the bread you’d almost get fat. 
He must be God ‘cause he did that, How cool is that!

This verse of the song recalls Mark chapter 6 where Jesus multiples the loaves and fishes to feed more than 5,000 people in the wilderness. From Mark 6, verse 39 we read…

39 Jesus told his disciples to make all the people divide into groups and sit down on the green grass…  41 Then Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and gave thanks to God. He broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 Everyone ate and had enough. 43 Then the disciples took up twelve baskets full of what was left of the bread and the fish. 44 The number of men who were fed was five thousand. 

In some ways this story reminds us of God feeding the people of Israel in the wilderness, with mana and quail from heaven. The key connection though, between the oneness of God and Jesus, is found in Mark 6, verse 34, where we read: When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw the large crowd and his heart was filled with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began to teach them many things…

This verse sounds clear echoes of Ezekiel 34:11-15 where God says:

11 “I, the Sovereign Lord, tell you that I myself will look for my sheep and take care of them 12 in the same way as shepherds take care of their sheep that were scattered and are brought together again. … 14 I will let them graze in safety in the mountain meadows and the valleys and in all the green pastures of the land of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will find them a place to rest. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

By feeding the people in the wilderness, both with his teaching and with carbs and protein, Jesus was acting as the divine shepherd of Israel who has compassion on his people.

For about the first 300 years or so of church history, Christians wrestled with this idea of whether we could say that Jesus is in fact God and if so in what sense was he God. There were basically two approaches to this question, the functional approach and the ontological approach.

The functional approach said that Jesus was divine in the sense that he functioned in a divine manner. That is, Jesus did things that only God could do, therefore this proves he is God. Clearly, the song He Must Be God, uses a functional approach. As we’ve heard, Jesus saved people, he demonstrated power over creation and he shepherded people in a divine way.

But is this the only sense in which Jesus is divine? Can we say that Jesus is one with God ontologically speaking? Ontology is just a fancy word which means being or essence or substance. Function has to do with purpose whereas ontology has to do with identity, who you are on the inside.

To help understand the difference between the functional and ontological approaches I want you to think of a cake. Any kind of cake you like. The function (or purpose) of a cake is to feed people, to comfort people and to help people celebrate special occasions like birthdays. But the ontology of a cake (the substance of it) is flour, eggs, butter, sugar and things like that. In a word, we could say the essence of a cake is sweetness. If it’s not sweet, then to my mind, it doesn’t really have the ontology of a cake.

Or take a bag of chips as another example. The function of a bag of chips is to feed people but the ontology (the essence or substance) is potatoes and salt.  

While it is relatively easy to see from reading the gospels that Jesus is God in a functional sense, can we say he is God in an ontological sense? By way of metaphor, if God had DNA would Jesus’ DNA be the same as God’s DNA?

The matter came to a head in the Fourth Century AD/CE at the Council of Nicea. From this Council we got the Nicene Creed, part of which reads:

“We believe… in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father as only begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father.”

The Nicene Creed tells us, yes, Jesus does share the same essence as God.

Translating this to the image of Jesus as the good shepherd, Jesus fulfils both the function of a shepherd and the essence of a shepherd. The function of a shepherd is to protect and feed the sheep. The essence of a shepherd is comprised of things like presence, care, patience and compassion.

In the account of Jesus feeding the 5000 (from Mark 6) we notice at least two specific signs of God’s essence – namely the compassion Jesus had on the crowds (in verse 34) who were like sheep without a shepherd and also the abundance with which Jesus fed the crowds. Everyone had more than enough; there were 12 basketfuls left over. ‘From all the bread you’d almost get fat.’ Compassion and abundance are signs of God’s presence. The Lord doesn’t do things by halves. 

Thinking more broadly, the primary essence of God is love. Divine love is qualitatively different from human love. There are no words to do justice to God’s love. We see the quality of divine love in the way Jesus made a choice to go to the cross to die for us, while we were still sinners.

Jesus saw himself as one with God the Father, sharing the same essence. In John 14 Philip asks Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father; that is all we need.” And Jesus replies, “…Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. If not, believe because of the things I do.” 

As I understand it, this is another way of Jesus saying he is both ontologically and functionally one with God and therefore he reveals God to us.

Jesus’ claim to be one with God was proved true when God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day.

Conclusion:

This morning we have heard how Jesus is Saviour, Creator and divine Shepherd. In these ways Jesus demonstrates he is God both in function and in essence. Jesus isn’t just God prima facie – Jesus is God through and through.

Where are you at in your journey of knowing, accepting and trusting Jesus? 

Let’s stand and sing, He Must Be God…

Jesus healed a paralysed man who was brought to him.
Jesus healed him, so he could show: He forgives our sin.
How cool is that! How cool is that! He told the man to pick up his mat. 
He must be God ‘cause he did that, How cool is that!

Jesus calmed a terrible storm while he was at sea.
Jesus calmed it, so he could say “Fear not, trust in me.”
How cool is that! How cool is that! He spoke a word – the waves went dead flat 
He must be God ‘cause he did that, How cool is that!

Jesus fed a very big crowd who’d no food to eat.
Jesus fed them, so he could show He’s all that we need.
How cool is that! How cool is that! From all the bread you’d almost get fat. 
He must be God ‘cause he did that, How cool is that!

CCLI No. PCL112980


Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to the song ‘He Must Be God’.  What was your prima facie impression of this song the first time you heard it?

In what ways does Mark 2:1-12 indicate that Jesus must be God?

How is divine forgiveness different from human forgiveness?

Why do we need both history and personal experience to know Jesus?

In what ways does Mark 4:35-41 indicate that Jesus must be God?

Where are you at on your journey of knowing, accepting and trusting Jesus? What is your pathway to faith in Jesus? 

In what ways does Mark 6:30-44 indicate that Jesus must be God?

What evidence do we find in the Scriptures that Jesus shares the same essence as God?

Outtakes

In verse 8 of Mark 2 we read: At once Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said to them, “Why do you think such things? Only God can know what is in someone’s heart and mind. Jesus wasn’t showing off by telling the teachers of the law that he knew what they were thinking. He was acting to save them from committing blasphemy themselves. By disrespecting Jesus, the lawyers were in danger of disrespecting God (because Jesus is one with God).

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When we think about the apostles, they knew Jesus from below and above. They bore witness to both the historical reality of Jesus and their personal experience of God’s Spirit.

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Some of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen and were accustomed to a bit of rough weather. The Sea of Galilee was prone to sudden storms. But this particular storm must have been especially severe because these veteran fishermen were scared for their lives. In contrast, Jesus is so completely relaxed that he is asleep in the boat. Jesus is at home in the storm. He has no fear. Why is Jesus unafraid in the storm? Because he is more powerful than the storm. And what could be more powerful than the storm? Well, that would be God.

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God’s love reaches out to care for and save those who are different from him. The apostle Paul explains how the essence of God’s love and Jesus’ love is the same in Romans 5. From verse 8 we read…

8 But God has shown us how much he loves us—it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us! 9 By his bloodwe are now put right with God; how much more, then, will we be saved by him from God’s anger! 10 We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God’s friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life!

[1] Refer Stanley Grenz’ book, ‘Theology for the Community of God’, pages 249-251.

[2] Grenz, page 261.

[3] Grenz, pages 261-262.