The Concept of 'Love' in the Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark or as he is simply known, Mark. It is a second-hand account of the tellings of Peter. This gospel tells an account of the life of Jesus. The main goal for Mark to write this gospel is for Jesus to be proved as the messiah. When people doubted their abilities but one person we know who did not was Mark. Mark stated his belief in Jesus very early on. In chapter 1:1 Mark states the following “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. During this essay we will look at what does it mean to love and can you love badly, how does Mark communicate this through the gospel and how it compares to my understanding of love.
To love Jesus well we have to acknowledge the fact that he is the messiah. The writer Mark agrees with this statement we see this on Mark 1:1 where it was stated earlier that “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. Marks shows the love that people have for Jesus by sharing an account of good deeds that he has done for many random people who do not come from the same walk of life as him. want to talk about is the account of Jesus curing a blind man. In this account, Jesus has seen a blind man that people want him to help. He then takes the blind man aside and touches his eyes. The first time he asks the blind man what he sees he says that he can see trees walking around. Then the next time Jesus touches his eyes he can cure his blindness. Although it is not directly stated when Jesus takes the time to do deeds such as these you can see why people love him. To me, there are three parts of love Passion, Intimacy and commitment. This theory comes from the Sternberg theory. If one of these is missing then true love is not present. One needs to have a passion to love because that is where the need to go back and see the same person every day and never get sick of them is seen. Intimacy is important because it allows for a close connection that people can have with a loved one. Intimacy can also be taken in a relationship with God. When people have an intimate relationship with God they can pray and talk to Jesus about their problems. The last part of love is commitment. Commitment is loving one unconditionally this is important because it allows for you to stay strong with the ones you love during the bad times. All of these apply to a relationship with Jesus. To love Jesus we have to acknowledge the fact that he is the messiah and we do that by showing our passion and devotion to God in hard times, praying when your spirits are low and always staying by his side because he loved us when we resented him.
To love Jesus well we as the human race have to trust everything he says or does because he is the image of God. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, we see the good deeds that Jesus has done. One example that I want to focus on that symbolizes that the respect and love that the people had for Jesus is when he was fed Seven loaves and two fish to four thousand people. To anyone, this may seem impossible but Jesus was made in God's image, therefore anything is possible. The love his disciples showed him by staying by his side even though they were hungry to the point of collapsing shows their gratitude towards Jesus. The people who were fed by Jesus were very thankful for what he has done and admire him which can be interpreted as bad love because they are only loving him for the food that he provided them. Another example of bad love can be seen at the end of Mark the context of this occasion is that Jesus has just left the tomb in which he was buried and has disappeared. This causes people to assume that he is the Messiah and that they have made a big mistake for discrediting who he is. I take this to be fake because it is as if you only now support him after you find out who he truly is. As a Seventh-Day Adventist, my perspective on love is something that cannot be replaced love is a binding agreement that cannot be taken away. Taking Augustine’s approach to love there is no such thing as a good friendship if you do not see godly like qualities in a human being. You cannot love somebody if they have sinful qualities, If you did then calling your wife the devil would be a compliment rather than an insult. True love and friendship have to reflect Godliness.
The last thing that I want to say is that Love stems from hate. When a young boy and a girl like each other they insult each other with rude comments that tend to hurt their feelings, but at this age, these comments are a sign of Likeness or admiration. This is very similar to how Jesus was treated when he was preaching and doing all these good acts. Many people did not know how to take what he was doing it was either that they felt insulted or that they loved his presence and wanted to be around him because of the excitement that he gave people. This is a true man even though not every human loved Jesus he loved them unconditionally no matter how rude or obnoxious they were. Jesus is a man who does not hate anyone that is why he sacrificed his body for us to live on earth he died for our sins and yet we still do not acknowledge.
Growing up in a Christian household, my parents always told me that a relationship with God is the most important thing in life. I always found it hard to come to connections with this statement because I used to think that your parents are like Jesus. They did everything for you. In my case, my parents said that they would sell the clothes off their backs for me to have the basic needs in life. When I think about the actions of my parents it makes me think about how Augustine said that when there is a good friendship you can see God in them. There is also something similar in the Bible that the Goal of humans being on earth is so that everyone can be more like Jesus in what they do. Wrapping this up we can see how Jesus is the messiah and the love for Jesus can be shaped by Sternberg's philosophy with the three parts each of these parts can be used to talk about the relationship with Jesus and how it reflects godliness. In the beginning when Jesus tried to help people by telling them things that they should do. He gained many haters and people began to envy him but as he began to do more work for people, the perception of him changed. People began to listen to him but as we see the Romans still had a problem with him because of the impact that he was having on their world. Last but not least we see how hate and love are related. Little boys and girls have started this trend but I believe that the origin comes from the way that Jesus was treated by the people who did not believe that he was the Messiah until he started helping people. When you think about it they loved Jesus in a selfish because they only cared for who he was after he started doing deeds for other people.
