Title: Is Your Face Bright Now?
Is your face bright right now?
2 Corinthians 4:6
2009.11.15
You may have seen the 'smiling face tile' from the Shilla period in the Gyeongju Museum. A poet named Lee Dong-chan saw it and wrote this poem.
The ancient Silla people
Build a house with smiling tiles
I think I lived in a smiling house.
one tile
fall under the eaves
one side of the face
Cracked and broken
laughter is unbreakable
hiding behind the leaves
You are smiling like a crescent moon.
me to someone
If you smile once
going a thousand years
I want to leave a smile like that
I try to imitate a smiley tile.
2001 Dong-A Ilbo New Year's Literature Prize Winner
Leaves are rolling around in the wind. Even the word 'life', which seemed quite heavy, turns into a light leaf in front of the autumn wind. The wind makes you think. What is it that living things that scatter like fallen leaves live by 'light'? Then, in the library on the second floor of the chapel, a book called 'History Engraved in Wadang' caught my eye. Then, a 'smiling roof tile', which was cut in half, caught my eye. It's more than a thousand years old, but it's a roof tile that broke in half and ran away, but it's still smiling brightly. Is this living by light?
“We put this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
In the church in Corinth, where Paul is writing this letter, zealous believers who fell into dualistic thinking in Greece appeared and were causing controversy. They held the belief that the soul was eternal and immortal, while the body was temporary and ephemeral. They did anything with their bodies. It was fleeting, but what did it matter? Not only that, but they also practiced abstinence, a complete denial of the flesh. He refused to marry, and he refused to be married. Because it was also considered ephemeral.
Paul responded to this problem by saying that our bodies are not ours, but Christ bought them with a price, and that our bodies are not lowly, but are the temple of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15-20). , 2 Corinthians 6:13). Couldn't get any higher than this. In this context, this time, it was said that our bodies are earthen vessels that contain treasures.
Earthenware is literally a bowl made of clay. Since humans were originally created from dust, it is appropriate to use the metaphor of earthenware. By the way, earthenware is the most ordinary and fragile vessel made of clay. So it is also the cheapest. But why are people likened to ordinary, fragile, and cheap earthenware?
Then people think like this. What is the bowl? Isn't it said that there is a treasure in there? That's all right, I wonder if it's worth asking about cheap, fragile, and ordinary things like that.
Is that true? Did Paul have this thought in his expression? If that is the case, then Paul was just accepting the dualism of Greek philosophy. It's a bowl (body), how about anything? That's not a big deal. Isn't it important what's inside (soul)? That's important.
The earthenware that Paul is talking about refers to earthenware that has not been glazed. In such a bowl, water soaks in water, alcohol soaks in alcohol, and honey soaks in honey. For the Israelites, earthenware had this understanding. We know that in Leviticus 11:33 and 15:1 it says, "If a man who sheds pus touches an earthen vessel, break it, and if he touches a wooden vessel, wash it.
Earthenware is more susceptible to contamination than wooden ones. As such, the characteristic of earthenware is that it is easy to change depending on what is contained in it. But before Paul said this, what he said about the treasure contained in it was 'the light of Christ Jesus.' It's not something you can put in a bowl and take out like a nugget of gold. It's not something you can pour out like water. The 'light of Jesus Christ' can be placed in a clay vessel and can be seeped into it, but no one can take it out or pour it out. It qualitatively changes it once it is placed in an earthen vessel, and is never separated from it again. If earthenware as earth symbolizes human beings, the treasure contained in it must be something related to this kind of change or salvation. Therefore, when Paul speaks of 'earthenware', it does not mean fragile, fragile, cheap, but the most precious and valuable. It's not like, 'We are insignificant, but the Jesus we believe in is our treasure', it's not like, 'You are valuable. He is like a treasure.' That's the word. Why?
It is because the light of Jesus Christ is contained. "God, who said 'Let your light shine in the darkness', has shone in our hearts and has given us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). That is why we are treasures.
Paul contrasted Christ with the first man, Adam, and called him the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). Likewise, here, the bright light of God's first light on the world is contrasted with the bright light in the face of Christ. If the light that God first created is the light that illuminates the world, the light given to us through Christ is the light that illuminates our hearts. If the light is bright, the vessel containing the light should also shine brightly. Therefore, just as Christ is the light of the world (John 8:12), so are those who follow Him (Matthew 5:14). It is this kind of light that Paul means treasures in earthen vessels. It is the light in the face of Christ, and the light in the faces of those who follow Him. This is what it means to put your treasures in earthenware. In short, "Is your face bright right now?" is to ask. If so, then you now harbor or have the treasure. that you are a Christian.
When Paul referred to our bodies as earthen vessels, perhaps he was thinking of a human being who is so weak, fragile, and so helpless in the face of such misery. Earthenware is easily defiled, and once it becomes unclean, it must be broken. On the other hand, however, there is a reversal of things that are easily stained and fragile, and that they are also easy to change. Suppose you are a gold or silver bowl. Would the bowl change if I put anything in it? Aren't we lucky enough that we are not pottery before Christ? If earthenware is easy to become unclean when touched by an unclean person, won't it become a completely new existence when it touches the light of Christ, his light, and his brightness? That is why those who follow Christ are called 'earthenware vessels'. Before light was contained, the vessel was easily corrosive and fragile, but the vessel filled with light is not easily broken even though it is still earthen, and any hardship or misfortune does not penetrate. So Paul says:
“We are afflicted in many ways, but not in trouble; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; knocked down, but not destroyed” (8-9).
Paul speaks of the treasure contained in this earthen vessel:
“We always carry in our bodies the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies” (10).
This is the secret of the treasure in the earthenware. It is the light of Jesus Christ. This light does not shine from the splendid heavenly world, but from the death of Jesus Christ and his cross. The treasure contained in the earthen vessel does not refer to any spiritual treasure jar, but to the death of Jesus, which we always carry. That is how the life of Jesus shines brightly in us.
Therefore, the people holding this treasure and the earthenware must also be the faces of people who have been immersed in light. It is something that should hold a thousand-year-old smile. A bright face and a smile that will still shine after a thousand years. The smile is on his face, and to see if he has treasure in the earthenware or not, just look at whether he has a [thousand-year-old smile] and you can tell in a second.
Fallen leaves are the proper meditation for us to do in autumn.