St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday Sermon – First Sunday After Epiphany – January 8, 2012
“Good the Tearing of God”
Text: Mark 1:4-11

Last Sunday’s message - to start off 2012 as a Leap Year with 53
Sundays – last Sunday’s message was titled “Good - the Timing of God”,
meaning whatever a new year brings, we can trust God in Jesus Christ
to be God with us & God for us and trust the time God’s gives us in
every new year to be full of His grace, full of God’s good timing.
Also, I said, a good overall theme for these Epiphany Sundays in
January is given in Romans 8:28. “We know that for those who love God
ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD, for those who are called according
to His purpose.”
All things – so the good I’m going to focus on this Sunday comes
from picking out & picking up on a word in this Sunday’s Gospel read-
ing from Mark chapter 1, a word that doesn’t come out in all trans-
lations but is there in some.
For example, in the English Standard Version (ESV) of Mark 1:10 that
I read earlier it says, “And when he (Jesus) came up out of the water

(after being baptized by John the Baptist), immediately (Jesus) saw the
heavens opening & the Spirit descending on Him like a dove.”

But the New International Version (NIV) reads a little differently.
It says, “As He was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven
“being torn open” and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove.” The
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) says “And just as HE was coming
up out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens “torn apart” and the
Spirit descending like a dove on Him.” Eugene Peterson’s Bible, THE
MESSAGE says “The moment He came out of the water, Jesus saw the sky
split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him.”
Although some people may think this is just “playing with words”,
here’s the question it raises: is there any difference between “the
heavens opening” and “heaven being torn open - the heavens torn apart
- the sky split open, ripped open” -- and who does the tearing, the
splitting, ripping open the sky”? Is there a good point to be made
for the more literal interpretation of the heavens “being torn open,
torn apart?”
I say, “Good - the tearing; good that God does the tearing open,
splitting open, ripping open the heavens.” The good is the sharper,
clearer focus it gives us of God not hesitating, God not quietly,
matter-of-factly opening a little hole and sending down His Spirit on
Jesus, but God acting boldly, God taking the initiative, God who is
the almighty God of heaven & earth, as it were, taking the fabric of
the heavens in both His hands and tearing it apart, ripping it open,
thus setting in motion the final act of God’s plan to save His people
thru the life & death, thru the obedience & innocence of His own be-

loved Son -- born of the virgin Mary but filled with His Spirit.
I know in this life, in our common, everyday use of the
word “tearing” it’s hard for us to imagine any “tearing” that’s good.
Physically tearing our clothes, our pants, our shirts, our sweaters
by getting them hung up/stuck on a sharp object is not a good thing.
Verbally tearing into spouses or children or a neighbor with harsh
words amounts to violently attacking & abusing someone that can be
hurtful, devastating, which is not a good thing.
Psychologically tearing someone down with a steady stream of nega-
tivism or shame or unfair criticism is not a good thing.
Marriages, families, relationships that get torn apart emotionally
by bitter disagreements or angry divorces or court-imposed orders for
protection or separation; that is not a good thing either.
It’s not good to tear other people down to make ourselves look good
Again and again the Bible says it’s certainly not good to tear
ourselves away from God and the truth of His Word. It’s not good to
tear God’s word out of context. It’s not good to tear out the parts
of God’s Word we don’t like or that don’t make sense.
We pray “hallowed be God’s name” because it’s not good to tear
down the name of God by not reflecting the holiness & goodness of
God’s good name in our daily living.
And in the “secular, self-serving, self-indulging climate of our
culture” where it’s pretty much “everyone for themselves”, it’s not
good to tear around on our own, doing our own thing, which often
leads to a lack of respect & consideration that’s due unto others
and is in keeping with God’s Law.
So with all this negative, often-times negligent, sometimes nasty,
tearing up, tearing into, tearing down, tearing apart, tearing away
from, tearing around that’s not good news; and with none of us able
to tear ourselves away from any of this on our own because none of us
by nature can tear up our sins, throw them into a wastebasket, and
take the first step back to God, it strikes me as I hope it strikes
you as very welcome news, very good news, that God tears apart,
tears open the heavens and in His mercy God takes it upon Himself to
quietly send His Son into our world at Bethlehem and then 30 years
later, at the edge of the Jordan River, just after John has baptized
Jesus with “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” God
doesn’t just float down His Spirit, but God the Father, Almighty,
tears open, tears apart the heavens, rips them open and in so doing
ultimately sets the stage for His Son to tear down the wall of sin &
death that separates us from God and opens up new things for us as
the redeemed people of God.
Good – that the tearing God does is God not tearing into us, but
God tearing apart the heavens to send down His Spirit upon His Son
that God’s beloved Son with whom He is well pleased might take every

ungodly, earthly tearing things down or tearing into others, take all
that upon Himself and pay the price for it all by ultimately being
lifted up on a cross, flogging whips & hammered nails tearing into
Jesus’ flesh as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
According to Mark, on the day of Jesus baptism, coming up out of
the waters of the Jordan River, no one else other than Jesus saw the
heavens being torn apart, torn open and the Spirit descending on Him.
And according to Mark’s account of what happened immediately after
Jesus’ baptism, no one else heard the voice of God speaking but Jesus
But Mark’s account of what happened at Jesus’ baptism 2000 ago is
here recorded for us so that we might see & hear & believe that Jesus
is indeed the Messiah, the Savior & Lord whose entrance into our bro-
ken & torn apart world was foretold by the prophet Isaiah and ful-
filled on the cross.
What Isaiah said in Isaiah 64 was, “O that you, Lord, would tear
open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at
Your presence . . . to make your name known to your adversaries, so
that the nations might tremble at your presence.”
At Jesus’ baptism it didn’t happen exactly that way, but the fact
that word in the Greek says literally “God rent the heavens, tore
them apart” tells us believers who know the whole story of Christ’s
coming that in Christ, upon whom God’s Spirit descends, God does
indeed do a new and powerful thing that changes everything.
The only other place in the New Testament where the Greek word
for “rending, tearing apart, split open” is used is that moment when
at the end of his agonizing suffering on the cross Jesus “cried out
one more time with a loud voice & yielded up his spirit.”
“And behold,” says Matthew 27:51, “the curtain of the temple was
torn in two, ripped, split open from top to bottom,” signifying the
barrier of sin & death separating God from man was now ended, removed
and God’s plan to save all mankind was accomplished.”
Good - the tearing, I say; good God tearing the heavens open, God
tearing the Holy of Holies curtain apart in order to get to us be-
cause we could never on our own get back to God.
“Baptism of the Lord Sunday is a good day for congregations to
celebrate God tearing open the heavens. We’re pretty sure the coming
weeks of January & February & March with bursts of harsh winter
weather, hectic politicking, still-shaky economy, will be a time for
us, as it always is, when the will of God can seem elusive and the
power of God absent.
”Yet before we let Mark in the Gospel readings for Epiphany and
beyond take us into the hard weeks to come, Mark’s account of the
heavens being torn open by God and God’s Spirit descending on Jesus
His beloved Son with whom He is well pleased gives us a moment to
taste and see and hear and ponder the goodness of the Lord.

“It is a Sunday to wear white and shout hallelujah. The heavens
have been torn open, and this is a day, a season to bask in the love
they reveal.” (Feasting on the Word, Year B , Volume 4, page 241)