TRIVIAL PURSUIT has become one of the most popular board games of all times. It was created in 1981 by Scott Abbott and Chris Hanley, after realizing that they were missing some pieces of their Scrabble game. As of 2004, according to one source, the game has sold 88 million copies in 26 countries and 17 languages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivial_Pursuit)
I do not own a copy of the game and would never want a copy of the game. I find it to be quite dissatisfying as board games go. While I’d like to have you believe it is because the game is a bore, the truth is I’m not very smart. I don’t like trivial pursuit because it exposes my ignorance and inability to answer the questions! There is no fun in playing a game that you can’t play!
There is an age old question that has been with us nearly from the beginning of time. People have been trying to answer it for centuries, grappling with truths and incomplete responses surrounding the answers. It is a question about Jesus. The question is, “Who is this?”
The answers sometimes come quickly and other times the answers are not so easy. We are always in pursuit of the answers which are far from trivial. The answers we come up with shape us. It gives clarity to life or completely muddies its purpose creating more questions on top of questions. It can gain an audience or incite a mob. The answers can generate friends or enemies, supporters or critics.
A contemporary answer drawn from wikipedia (a web encyclopedia) defines Jesus this way. He is “known as Jesus of Nazareth, is the central figure of Christianity. He is commonly referred to as Jesus Christ, where "Christ" is a title derived from the Greek christós, meaning the "Anointed One", which corresponds to the Hebrew-derived "Messiah". The short answer: Son of God…
The greatest war we fight is the evil that says He is not.
There are several examples of questions concerning the person of Jesus Christ. Two of them in the Bible are significant for our point of reference. The leading officials watching and critiquing Jesus asked the question when a woman was pouring an expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and he forgave her sins. They posed the question, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” (Luke 7:49)
His own followers, having spent considerable time with him, and experiencing his extraordinary power wondered about him. They were in a storm on the water. They thought they were going to drown and calling out to Jesus for help, he calmed the raging sea. In Luke 8:25 we have the account, “In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.”
As we search for answers to the question, Jesus pushes us for an answer. One such occasion was when he was praying as recorded for us in Luke 9:20ff. His leadership team was with him when he asked them a question. “Who do the crowds say I am?” There were different answers – “some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.” (19) There were a lot of answers but none of them exposed the controversial truth of who Jesus is. Finally Jesus pushed the disciples to answer for themselves. The world had opinions and answers. Now it was time for His people to look past society’s interpretation and perceptions and face the question personally and deal with how Jesus related to them. He moved them outside their comfort zone and made them face the issue with the words: “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” (20) Now the pressure was on. Would they join the observers in suggesting he was a great man, a good teacher, or a prophet back from the dead? Such admission put them in one of two camps – they still did not grasp his message that he was Messiah – or they understood the message but did not believe it and so followed in subtle rejection of him. One writer notes of the crowds on that Palm Sunday and you can be sure the disciples were among them, “They called Him ‘Son of David’; but they made no protest against His martyrdom. If not directly, yet indirectly, they shared in the awful responsibility of His death.”
The answer we give to the question probably says as much about who we are as it does about our knowledge of who Jesus is. We may find ourselves like the German philosopher Schleiermacher. He was sitting on a park bench when a policeman, thinking him to be a street person, shook him and asked, “Who are you?” to which Schleiermacher sadly replied, “I wish I knew.”
“Who do you say I am?” Jesus queries us today. Our identity hands on it. If we don’t know some of the answers we too will be like Scheliermacher. E.g. – “If I had it to do all over again” – borne out of the realization that life was not all it was meant to be. Sadly, if most who wish they could “do it all over again” did it all over again, they would desire the same if they had a third round opportunity because unless such people discover the Person of Jesus Christ and anchor their lives in that knowledge, nothing will change.
Peter answered without hesitation. Being true to his personality, whether he was swinging a sword severing someone’s body parts or answering a question, Peter shot from the hip and let the cards fall where they may. When Jesus pushed with “Who do you say I am?” Peter shot back without a second thought, “The Christ of God.” (20) He did not understand of course the full weight of that answer or the implications of what that response would mean for him a few days from now, but truth is truth and for Peter it had to be spoken. It is what it is.
In today’s visual Bible, the same question was raised as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey – (Matthew 21:6-10…)
While Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ of God, the full revelation of Jesus seemed to be cloaked to the general population – 21:11…
Their answer was correct but incomplete. It was marked by the years of man-made traditions, rules and regulations that created spiritual cataracts. This is in part what Jesus meant when he explained to his disciples the reason he taught with stories. Jesus said in Matthew 13:13, “That is why I tell these stories, because people see what I do, but they don’t really see. They hear what I say, but they don’t really hear, and they don’t understand.”
I mentioned Jesus was a controversial figure. He was known yet mysterious. He was understood yet his social interaction offended people and left everyone with questions. He was exciting to be around but was hazardous for your health and safety if his enemies deemed you a follower. He was embraced yet rejected at the same time. People loved his philosophies but did not prefer his politics. He would open the Scriptures and while reading from them, would offend the religious community so they would have pushed him off a cliff – you can read more in Luke chapter 4 for the whole story. In one moment he made complete sense of the world and in another instant he was offensive.
Does this all sound terribly familiar? He still creates controversy. The world cannot fit the gospel of Jesus Christ into its norms of political correctness and uninhibited promiscuous behaviour. He is still The Absolute in a world that believes in plurality. Where he says “I am the way, the truth and life, no one comes to the Father except through me” the world argues back that Jesus Christ is not the sole or exclusive Source of truth.
“Who is this?”
Many of the answers are straight as they were for Peter – You are the Son of God. You are the Saviour of the world. You are a God of love and forgiveness. You are a Friend of friends.
The answers become a little more difficult however, when Jesus does not seem to fit the situation – E.g. When people struggle with the sudden death of a child in an automobile accident where everyone in the other vehicle survived; or those who are powerless to alleviate the agonizing, excruciating pain of a loved one, followed by imminent death; then there’s the family that prayed for healing and stand at an open coffin. Friends, the question “Who is this?” is often a troubling question without easy answers. In fact, if the answer is always easy then the God of the answer is small. However, we must struggle to answer it in the common fabric of our daily lives in a world that is distraught with war, terrorism, genocides and mass hunger. To quote author Philip Yancey, “Faith gets tested when a sense of God’s presence fades or when the very ordinariness of life makes us question whether our responses even matter.” But we must try. Our failure to attempt to bring some semblance of understanding of how Jesus fits in the middle of the mess will relegate him to being a face in the crowd and his status will be equal to that of Islam’s Mohammad. (N.B. Muslims believe Mohammad was God’s final prophet and that God gave him the Qur’an or their holy text.)
He will be nothing more than Mahatma Ghandi, the India Independence Movement leader of India. He will be nothing more than any number of political leaders or social activists who shared a similar compassion for humanity and justice for all people.
“Who is this?”
The answers will drive us to conclusions and responses as it did more than 2000 years ago. Easy answers manipulate us like the crowds that shouted in support of Him on that first Palm Sunday, spreading palm branches and coats on the ground in front of him. They hailed him in the excitement of the religious festivities of Passover that brought two and a half million (William Barclay) spiritual Pilgrims into Jerusalem. It was a time of expectancy and the air was electrifying. On this first Palm Sunday they shouted “Hosanna” a term used to describe their belief that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah (Deliverer) of God. Yet, when Good Friday came round, they shouted, “Crucify him!” Unclear of who this man was, they moved with the sway of the crowd and filled the moment with the most acceptable expectant response. It is that energy of a good hockey game (playoffs!) where one moment we’re cheering for our team and the next we are totally frustrated with their pitiful performance.
We need to move away from the question for now, in an effort to seek some conclusions. We could actually spend a lot of time exploring the answers.
To draw closer to a more complete revelation of “Who is this?” we must be willing to walk roads we would rather not take. Poet Thomas Stearns Eliot said, “In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not.”
The disciples of Jesus, that close group of twelve men, had to walk the road Jesus walked – to know His rejection and opposition on a daily basis; they had to know the experience of fear and complete desperation before they could experience the exhilaration of the truth that Jesus Christ was Messiah and had risen!
Our roads of pain and difficult experiences are those times when we can be closest to God and receive revelations of who He is. It is when we reach the end of our abilities and control that we need to become most dependant on the higher power of God. It is through the knowledge of him that life offers some semblance of order to the chaos.
To draw closer to the complete revelation of “Who is this?” we must prepare not a quick answer but take a journey. The answer is learned through the process of life and will finally be completely realized when we get to heaven. It was said of those who heralded Jesus as well as his followers who deserted him that their faith was not strong enough to stand because “they had not faced what it meant.”
We cannot presume that to follow Christ is to enjoy the favors of eternal security without the pain of the cross. St. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). We must be willing to go to the cross and indeed with the Saint declare, “I no longer live but Christ lives in me” (20). It means that we must daily work toward becoming dead to our own dreams, desires and destinations, to know one thing and one thing only – the will of God.
To draw closer to a more complete revelation of “Who is this?” we are pushed to move beyond knowing about him to being engaged with him. Dr. Warren Wiersbe, pastor and author speaks of how the religious leaders had so entrenched the people with their man-made rules and regulations that they actually robbed them of the truth about the Person of Jesus Christ. It is quite possible that they could not believe it, really take hold of it, even if they wanted too.
If we want to get closer to the revelation of knowing who Jesus is, we must search for complete truth. We will not find it as long as we work toward protecting and serving our own interests. We have to get beyond hearing about Jesus like a bedtime story to knowing him firsthand in relationship. To quote one source, “The devotion of the Christian centuries is not devotion to the memory of a great Prophet of the past, but to love to an ever present Lord and King who still lives and reigns among {people}.” (The Speaker’s Bible)
I fell in love with Deuteronomy 10:20 as rendered in the NLT: “You must fear the LORD your God and worship him and cling to him.”
“I want to know Him I want to know Christ better,
I want to Him and make Him better known”
WRAP
What is the underlying message that the Lord would leave with us today from all that has been said? I think it is this.
• Get to know me more than you do.
• Realise that the moment you think you have all the answers, it is then your journey ends and there is no need for faith.
• Learn to answer the question of who I am by embracing the realities of your life and the lives of others and learn together.
• The answers are a journey, not a summary in a sentence. I am much bigger than that!
