Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Thoughts on Mark 2: Jesus violated "proper theology"

In my discussion of Mark 1, I talked about how odd Jesus must been in his day, in that he did not meet expectations.  We see that even more in chapter 2, except here he flaunts expectations.  He is accused of blasphemy, cavorting with sinners, and breaking the Sabbath.  With each of these, Jesus proclaims himself superior to the religious leaders of the day.  None of them would consider forgiving someones sins, dining with sinners, or doing anything resembling work on the Sabbath.  But Jesus did all of these, and he did them fairly early in his ministry. 

At this point, I imagine the religious leaders went from thinking, "Who is this odd man?" to "Who does this man think he is?"  They recognized some of the actions in chapter two (forgiving sins and breaking the Sabbath) as being the prerogative of God alone.  But, he obviously couldn't be God in the flesh because he was cavorting with sinners, who God wouldn't be able to stand in his presence.  To be honest, I think this would have been my reaction as well.  It's simply proper theology.

But Jesus violated "proper theology".    The Holy God came down to earth and started interacting with people in ways before unimaginable.  He forgave sins and then started hanging around with those committing them.  Then He broke the letter of his own law.  It doesn't make sense in a stringent theological framework. 

I think it's good, then, for us to have our theology match God's revelation of himself rather than try to force God into our own "proper theology".

No comments:

Post a Comment