The Augustinian Friars in Britain

Our Hearts are Restless until they Rest in You, Lord

God is love: a theological revolution by Jacob Choi OSA

 

Sometimes we use the word ‘revolution’ to describe a drastic change. For example, Copernicus’s astronomical theory was revolutionary in his time. The teaching of Jesus that God is love was also revolutionary in his time, though we often take it for granted.

 

We sometimes think of God like an awe inspiring Big Brother: He keeps an eye on us and punishes us for our wrongdoings. However, Mark’s gospel (8:27-35) teaches that that is a worldly way of thinking about God: to Peter, who believed that God would soon be showing off who the Boss is to powerful people on earth, Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.” Jesus taught that God is compassionate. Hence, he suffered grievously, was rejected by the 1st century religious leadership, and was put to death. The mighty God’s humbling Himself was totally unimaginable for most of Jesus’s contemporaries, especially for their religious leadership: the high priests mocked Jesus on the cross that, if he set himself free from the crucifixion, they would believe him (Cf., Mark 15,32). The contemporaries of Jesus believed that the one to be sent by God would certainly be showing off who the Boss is like Moses or King David.

 

However, after the resurrection, the early Christian community began to see an image of the almighty God in the suffering and death of Jesus. They began to recognize God’s greatness in the helplessness of the historical Jesus. How can such helplessness be associated with the greatness of God? The two words are mutually inconsistent. However, the early Christian community saw an unbelievable truth about God after the crucifixion, and that is that the great God humbled Himself in an unimaginable way out of love for the humanity: His compassion for the humanity - both the good and the evil - is without boundary. Probably, they saw a motherly figure, who sacrifices everything for her children’s sake, in the life and death of Jesus.

 

The idea that God can never be humiliated is a very worldly way of thinking about God. The Gospel teaching still surprises me. It is also surprising for me to see that the early Christian community paradoxically recognized God’s greatness in the human weakness of the historical Jesus. The teaching of Jesus that God is love is still revolutionary in the context of my own life because I like to think of God as a powerful, awesome figure who always exercises his authority in a worldly manner. It is also an enormous challenge for me to conduct my every day life under the principle that God is boundlessly compassionate.

 

Jacob Choi OSA