It always struck me as strange that God would declare that
He was pleased with Jesus when John baptized him in the River Jordan. After all,
Jesus hadn't really done anything to that point; he may have changed water into
wine since that took place (seemingly) before the official start of his earthly
ministry, but even that miracle was not necessarily glorifying to God in the
same way his healings, preaching, and other miraculous deeds. And yet God
declared Himself pleased with His beloved Son. This suggests several truths
which I conceive may prove transformational if they take root in our hearts.
The first truth this suggests is that God based His approval
of Jesus not on Jesus’ miraculous activities in promulgating the Kingdom of
Heaven on earth, whether through preaching and healing or incarnating the life
of the Father, thus fulfilling the role of Adam. True, Jesus did complete his
earthly life to the utter satisfaction of the Father, not only in his sinless
life, but in his obedient submission to the Father’s will to the point of the
Cross. This is the way in which Jesus was “made perfect” on earth; that he,
being perfect, offered his heart and life up to God and endured the absolute
torment and unimaginable agony of shouldering the sins of humanity. He was
always perfect in his nature; he had to prove his perfection in vocation and
ministry. And in the same way, we share the perfection of Jesus’ nature, which
took effect at the point of conversion, and we are becoming perfect in
submission to God’s will, working out our salvation with much fear and trembling,
but looking forward to the completion of that process which will culminate
after we die or the Lord returns, whichever comes first.
All this is true and too glorious for our minds to fully
comprehend or even to express in my inadequate words. But again God’s
declaration of His approval of Jesus took place before the perfection of Jesus’
earthly ministry was complete. Disregarding the timelessness of God, which is a
valid objection, I propose that God deliberately chose to locate this
expression of approval at the stage in Jesus’ life for the purpose of
undermining a common objection that some people, even believers who might know better,
have about emulating or comparing themselves with Jesus. “Well, of course God
loved Jesus,” they retort. “Jesus was perfect! No wonder he was able to do what
he did, and to win God’s approval! Look at the miracles he performed. I’ll
wager that if I walked on water and healed a man blind from birth God would
thump me on the back too!” and if God’s declaration of being pleased with Jesus
came after part or all of his earthly ministry, those people might have a leg
to stand on, even if other passages would prove problematic for said leg. But
for the purposes of unpacking this a bit more I turn to an exemplary book I
just finished reading called The Normal
Christian Life by Watchman Nee.
The final chapter of this book (which you really must read)
discusses the concept of “wasting” for the Lord. When Mary broke the alabaster
flask of oil and anointed Jesus in the house of the Pharisee, Judas Iscariot
and others of the Twelve berated her for wasting an expensive item that could
have been used to bless the poor in some manner. Nee discussed Jesus’ response
and expanded upon the idea that whatever we do for God is never waste in the
sense of being pointless or useless or too extravagant, for how can anything we
ever sacrifice for the Lord even begin to approach recompensing Him for what He
has lavished abundantly on us and for us and to us? Nee went on to cite
examples from his own life, particularly a woman who seemed to be wasting her
talents and extraordinary relationship with the Lord by staying in a remote
village and not traveling around conducting seminars or writing books. The point
was that God’s economy looks for different things than humanity’s priorities
suggest are valuable and important. Giving money to the poor is a tangible way
to demonstrate one’s devotion to principles or even to God and blesses others; “wasting”
money to anoint Jesus’ body soon to be crucified and buried is far more opaque
to the world’s eyes and moral paradigms. Yet Jesus pronounced himself pleased
with her offering and halted his followers from disparaging her profligacy.
And in this principle God’s declaration of His approval of
Jesus begins to make more sense. For we are not told of any great works that he
did before his ministry on earth; the only snapshot of his childhood,
adolescence and young adulthood is that episode in the temple where he teaches
the experts about the Scriptures and scares his mother half to death. Yet what
God values is the availability of Jesus to the Father, the waiting patiently
upon God’s will and in God’s time, of trusting that God’s plans are good and
will transpire where and when they must to bring about God’s glory and praise.
God saw that Jesus was wasting his time waiting for God to direct his life, to
start his ministry and initiate that inevitable death march towards Calvary and
the empty tomb. After all, what was Jesus doing in his twenties? There’s a
decade more of preaching and teaching, healing and ministering, just wasted, a
thousand missed opportunities, innumerable people with broken bodies and broken
hearts thirsty for truth and meaning and love that went without ever
encountering Jesus. I imagine that if I were to travel back to meet Jesus at
his 18th birthday, I might exhort him to start his ministry much
sooner than he did; why not bless and heal and nurture and teach as many people
as possible? This is the worldly way of thinking.
But God was watching Jesus, and He knew His Son was
completely devoted to the will of the Father. In other words, it was the
orientation of Jesus’ heart in relation to God the Father that pleased Him, and
not any works of righteousness or any sound doctrine or piety or miraculous
signs.
Now, by this time you might be saying to yourself (or
others), “Get on with it! Yes, Jesus was perfect and his very nature was
pleasing to God. I know all this! What are you getting at? How is this anything
new?” This brings me to the second truth, and the one that I pray will prove
radically transformational in my life and hopefully in yours as the Lord
reveals and imparts it to your heart throughout the year 2014. Here it is: God is pleased with me. Well pleased.
Just let that sink in for a moment. Marinate your heart and
mind in that statement for a tick. God is well pleased with me. With me! And with you!
Because, as mentioned before, if God is well-pleased with
Jesus because of his complete availability to the Father, because he was
willing to be wasted for God’s good pleasure, to cool his heels and just be, and if by the indwelling Holy Spirit
we share the life of Jesus, both his life and death and resurrection, then that
means that God is well-pleased with us in the same way!
If you’re not jumping up and down and shouting your voice
hoarse right now in astounded rejoicing, you may need to ruminate further on
this truth. And bear in mind that God’s pleasure with you and me is not based
again on our ability to measure up to His standards, because His pleasure with
Jesus was not based on Jesus’ activity for God, his holiness and perfect accomplishment
of Jesus’ earthly ministry. No, it was based in Jesus’ complete availability to
be wasted for God, to be at His disposal and thus to be disposed of according
to God’s will. And therefore God’s pleasure with us is completely independent
upon our performance here on earth, even in our new lives as believers. I
struggle with a myriad of fleshly desires and peccadillos; just yesterday I found
myself in a funk and was tempted to declare myself utterly worthless. I
actually rejoiced in the fact that no woman would ever be interested in me as a
potential mate because I was such an unmitigated mess, and resigned myself to
being God’s major rehabilitation project during my earthly sojourn. But I was
reminded that God’s love for me and His pleasure in me is not based on my
ability to control my appetites and abstain from indulging sinful desires or
attitudes.
This is the truth that transforms, the knowledge that God’s
love for me and His pleasure in me comes from His love for and approval of
Jesus, and is completely independent from my ability to live in Christ-like
manner. If I can live in that truth this year, I will not be the same. And
neither will you.
