It just ain’t happening ... (Part 10 - of 12) ... faithfulness, wisdom, & prayer...when the miracles don’t come. Mark ch9v14-29 (to open in a new window, hold control down as you click the link)
We have been so far interpreting the prayer of Jesus (and
potentially James, John, & Peter), in that broad sense of an openness to
God; but it is worth noting as God’s prophet Hosea[1]
noted, that hearing the word of God is the only way forward for the
faithless/untrue people of God, and as Peter’s speech at the Jerusalem council
might be paraphrased[2],
regarding the inclusion of the Nations amongst the faithful;
“..it was through hearing the word of the euangelion that they became faithful,...
it was through faith in the loving favour of the one who ruled (even over
Caesar,) as “Lord” & “Saviour-of-the-World” (Jesus), that all nations can
now be counted as his people.”
From Peter’s statement, “hearing
the word of the euangelion” is analogous to God’s prior statement to Peter;
“Listen to Him”, the one whose announcement is present
(in Rome/Sydney/Dubbo) at any time people are hearing this gospel. To hear
Peter saying that he is “Lord” & “Saviour” (contrary to Caesar’s many
claims to these titles, culminating in “Son of God” - on all the billboards
& coins, & in all the proclamations of the imperial heralds at the time
of Mark’s writing) is analogous to the announcement from heaven; “This is my
Son, whom I Love” = “The Son of God”. But in the Transfiguration pericope Jesus
is not only announced to be this by those under him, but also by the only ONE over him. This gives the
WAY forward for the unfaithful identified in our pericope, that they too
might become faithful.
Next, we see that our pericope embodies what came to be seen
as the core of the Christian message. The Apostle Paul writes[3]
to the representatives of Jesus’ new Government[4]
being set up in Rome, that his
message is one of faithful responsiveness (=LISTEN)
to Jesus (not Caesar) as the ultimate (well, penultimate) LORD! (=
“My Son” - when said from Heaven). His words might be paraphrased (and commented on with respect to our passage in its
context) thus:
...declaring with your mouth that
Jesus is the Lord (even over unclean spirits?)
and believing in the heart-of-your-being that God has raised him from death (cf “suffer much, be rejected, killed, & raised”) … “Because what Isaiah said was true:
‘The one who trusts in Him will not be disgraced or put to shame.’” (the nine disciples
who asked “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” would probably see the relevance of
these words of Isaiah)
...“He is Lord over all things (yes, even unclean spirits!), and He is rich to all who invoke
His name (
as the nine presumably had) because as Scripture says,
‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will have him as their saviour.’
(remember, saviour = “Deliverer”; and the father
did find this, for his boy) Faith comes from hearing the report of the
word of God/Christ[5]
(We can see that for Peter to listen to God, would mean
that he’d have to listen to the son of God, because that is what God told him
to do. We can see that for the nine to listen to Jesus’ word to them would be
to trust his word of authority given to them and use his
world-view/wisdom/mind-set to overcome the wiles of the devil.)”
[4] if we take Jesus’s
wholistic plan to set up his own ekklesia (ἐκκλησία) to mean not only a new
approach to God, but a whole new Government of the world, and way of governing,
a new approach to the Legislative… ... Assembly.
[5] (At the end there is a textual variation between
“word of God” & “word of Christ” - but both work well when you realize that
Christ is the perfect image/likeness of God) Rom 10:16-17 τίς ἐπίστευσε τῇ ἀκοῇ ἡμῶν; ἄρα ἡ πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς, ἡ δὲ ἀκοὴ διὰ ρήματος
Θεοῦ. “Who has believed our report? So then, believing/faith come from
listening to the report of the word of the God”
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