Title Without Love, You're Nothing
Best way:
Without love you are nothing.
[1 Corinthians 12:31 ~ 13:3]
Han Wan-sang brother
In the New Year, we need to reaffirm the original aspiration and vision of Jesus of Galilee. A country or a market experienced a serious financial crisis at this time last year. We have come to realize once again that limitless competition inspires infinite greed and brings great disaster. In the really optimistic <The End of History>, the value of competition and victory is being shouted out loudly by the state powers and the powerful in the market even in a situation that is about to come to an end. At such times, followers of Jesus really need to reflect once again on what the missionary vision they were trying to achieve in the order of Roman rule that was harsh in the Galilee Jesus world.
In short, it was to establish the kingdom of God. Through various words of wisdom and parables, Jesus revealed the true face of the kingdom of God. Among them, it is necessary to pay attention to the parable of the feast. Not only did Jesus tell the banquet through parables, but he himself hosted the banquet, revealing the appearance of the kingdom of God. In order to better understand the feast of Jesus, we must first remember that the feast held in the Roman Empire and the feast of Jesus are fundamentally different. Also, it is necessary to pay attention to the essential difference between the movement of John the Baptist, who carried out the movement for the kingdom of God one step ahead of Jesus, and the movement for the feast of Jesus.
The Roman banquet was a feast for the wealthy, held in a situation where the emperor was absolute and deified. The Roman power, which continued to expand its territory by conquering the borders by force, celebrated their victory and increased the emperor's divine authority. As much as the feast of the Roman mainstream was splendid and prosperous, it was also exclusive. There was no space or consideration for the poor, the defeated, the lost, and the last. Hahaha, all the feasts held around us these days for the year-end and New Year holidays, especially ours held in fancy hotels, seem to resemble a Roman feast quite a bit. For a long time, I have had an oddity that is not an oddity. At times like this, invitations to the feast come from here and there, but I generally decline. In particular, I do not go to reunions or parties invited by influential people in my hometown. Since I graduated from a prestigious school, I do not go to such invitations. Because there, the praises of success and advancement, victory and wealth are heard as loud as noise.
The feast of Jesus was very different from the feasts of these triumphalists. It was radically different from that. This is because the kingdom of God of Jesus was different from the Roman rule of power.
However, the Jesus movement was not a fasting movement, but a joyful feast, a movement of feasting. Although the perfect image of the kingdom of God will appear in the future, when we practice love here and now, the kingdom of abba spreads like yeast among us and grows like a mustard seed. And this feast, very different from the Roman feast, was a feast of love and joy, where the poor, the last and the losers were treated like masters. It is a warm feast where the fringes can communicate more freely with others, and the defeated can raise their heads elegantly. Here, the last ones sit at the top. However, as soon as he is at the top of the table, he cannot enjoy the joy of being last for a long time, so he immediately yields his place to another. Therefore, the energy of warmth and generosity fills the banquet hall.
Here, we must remember that the feast of Jesus brings joy and freedom, unlike that of John the Baptist and the Roman Empire. Those invited to the feast of Jesus are those who want to humble themselves joyfully, and those who want to empty themselves and become happy servants to others. They try to increase the freedom of others by reducing their own freedom. So at the feast, a really beautiful paradox becomes a reality. The beautiful paradox of freedom.
To put this differently, they happily lead each other to lose gracefully to each other. A relationship unfolds in which you die because you love someone and you want to lose to that person. If we understand this paradox of love, then the paradox of freedom can also be easily understood. At the feast of Jesus, everyone enjoys restricting their own freedom while making others more free. And finally, each other can live more freely as subjects. There, by gracefully losing to your opponent, you can finally taste the wonderful joy of ascension in which everyone wins together. This is the banquet of Jesus, the vision of Jesus' kingdom of God.
However, the freedom of this feast and the joy of salvation raised serious problems for him. He had a problem. In order to understand the problems and concerns, we must first pay attention to the fact that his faith in salvation was firm. Stronger than the leaders of the mother church or headquarters church in Jerusalem at that time, Paul was absolutely convinced that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the gift of God the Father's love and grace. As much as he was convinced, he believed that neither the rule of circumcision nor the Jewish tradition of sacrificing food could be the conditions for salvation. The grace and faith of Christ were the way to salvation for him. It is precisely because of this conviction that Paul once quarreled with the most influential leaders of the Mother Church in Jerusalem at the time, especially Peter. Not only did they argue, they even rebuked Peter for being a hypocrite. (Galatians 2:11-14) Paul was resurrected while sometimes even fighting against the powerful Jerusalem church leadership (the supreme leader was James, the younger brother of Jesus). He emphasized the preciousness of grace and freedom obtained in Christ.
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