Who is Jesus
Jesus has been the subject of much controversy down the centuries.
Who was he – or who is he?
Some people claim he never existed.
Some claim he was a wonderful teacher but no more
Some even claim that he wasn’t a person but the code for a hallucinatory drug!
Let us also look at some other answers given over the centuries by famous men
1. ALBERT SCHWEITZER the famous liberal theologian and one of the 113 Swiss Nobel Prize winners:
“He was a deluded fanatic who futilely threw away his life in blind devotion to a mad dream. There is nothing more negative than the critical study of the life of Christ.”
Hardly a Christian answer!
2. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW – the famous atheist and writer who said
“Jesus was a man who was sane until Peter hailed him as the Christ and who then became a monomaniac…his delusion is a very common delusion among the insane…”
3 GEORGE W BUSH - the former President of the United States
As God’s only Son, Jesus came to Earth and gave His life so that we may live.
4. Ask the question to a practising MUSLIM and you will get the answer that Jesus was simply a great prophet , second only to Mohammed and that he was not divine.
But this morning I want to ask the question. Who do you think Jesus is?
Our Gospel reading opens with Jesus asking his disciples the same question that has intrigued both philosophers and theologians for at least 2000 years.
Who do you think Jesus is?
Mark 8:27 sets the scene:
27Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?"
And it is clear from their response that it was a question that was on everyone’s lips.
28 “The disciples replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others one of the other prophets."
But it wasn’t just the crowds who were talking about Jesus.
His own disciples were asking the same question.
We read on in Mk 8 :29
29Then he asked them. "But what about you?"
Peter answered, "You are the Christ.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Mt 16:16, it records that Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God."
It is one of those water shed moments in the Gospel – Peter’s realisation of who Jesus really is
I would like to look at Simon Peter’s answer:
16, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
1. What did Peter mean then and
2. What does this mean to us today.
1. What did Peter mean when he said “ You are the Christ the Son of the living God”
The word Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah – which simply means “God’s anointed One”
There were three types of people who would be anointed:
Prophets
Priests and
Kings
And in Jesus we find all three.
The Jews were expecting a Messiah who “would exercise God’s rule over God’s people” (The Message of Matthew – Michael Green p, 178)
But Jesus wasn’t the all conquering hero that the Jews were expecting – similar to Judas Maccabeus who had chased the occupying powers out in BC 167
Rather he was the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.
The last prophet in the Old Testament Malachi prophesied three hundred years before Jesus was born and said this:
1 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. (Mal 3:1)
Peter recognised Jesus as the Messiah – the one sent by God. God’s messenger
But he recognised more.
That Jesus wasn’t just human – but that he was divine too.
For a Jew like St Peter was – this was a seismic shift in his thinking – to call Jesus the Son of God.
All his life Peter had been taught that there is one God and never to worship a man as God.
2. Caesarea Philippi
And the city where Jesus asked the disciples the question was not insignificant either.
For he asked them the question in Caesarea Philippi, a city about 25 miles northeast of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown.
Caesarea Philippi was know for its plurality of religions.
In that city alone there were 14 temples dedicated to the worship of Ba’al.
And high up on a prominent mountain peak you could see the ultimate blasphemy for a Jew – a temple dedicated to the worship of Caesar.
The famous Bible commentator William Barclay put it all in perspective:
Here indeed is a dramatic picture. Here is a homeless, penniless Galilean carpenter, with twelve very ordinary men around him.
At the moment the orthodox are actually plotting and planning to destroy him as a dangerous heretic.
He stands in an area littered with the temples of Syrian gods; in a place where the ancient Greek gods looked down; in a place where the history of Israel crowded upon the minds of men; where the white marble splendour of the home of Caesar-worship dominated the landscape and compelled the eye.
And there – of all places – this amazing carpenter stands and asks men who they believe him to be, and expects the answer, the Son of God.
(William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew vol. 2 from The Daily Bible Study Series, p. 135.)
2. So what does that mean for us today?
If Jesus is God’s anointed One and he is divine – then we need to take what he says seriously
Jesus made some startling and very exclusive claims.
For example he said: “I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6)
I often hear people say that “All religions are basically the same – they all worship the same God”.
But I DON’T agree.
I would like to suggest to you that the key to what is Christianity is all about the answer to this question. Who is Jesus?
I would like to suggest to you that if you BELIEVE Jesus is the Christ the Son of God it will affect the way you live your life
I believe that Christianity isn’t really a religion – rather it is all about a relationship – our relationship with Christ.
I think Paul Young in his book “The Shack” put it well when he says that “religion is about having the right answers, and some of their answers are right.”
But Christianity is “about the process that takes you to the living answer and once you get him, he (Jesus) will change you from the inside."
Or to use Jesus words in John 15, he asks his disciples to:
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
Yet sadly so many people have the common misconception that a Christian is simply someone who is nice and good - and think that belief in God is all you need.
Story: I met a woman last week walking the dog and she said- once she found out I was a vicar that she believed in God.
But she didn’t know anything about Jesus – and hadn’t even got a modern translation of the Bible.
Conclusion
I would like to leave you with a final thought about who Jesus is from CS Lewis and from Malcolm Muggeridge.
And in his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis made this poignant statement,
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic--on the level with a
man who says he is a poached egg--or he would be
the devil of hell.
You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."(my thanks to the Campus Crusade website)
And Malcolm Muggeridge, in his book Jesus Rediscovered, had this to say:
” There is something about Jesus. And the question to the disciples comes again: "Who do YOU say that I am?" You must answer. And you. And you. And you and you.
I would not expect your response to say anything about "proleptic" or "salvific" or "eschatological."
No, my prayer is that, with Simon Peter, you would simply say with every fibre of your being, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
If like Peter you believe that he is the Son of God, then there are areas of our lives that God will touch
James in his letter tells us of one of these – the tongue
Story: I was on the Isle of Man this week and we stayed in a B& B and met an Australian couple who talked about the forest fires raging in New South Wales
And a forest fire can start by something as small broken bottle carelessly tossed away that causes the rays to the sun to converge on a dry piece of grass and so start burning.
And James likens the tongue to a fire – a forest fire
And we all have the experience somewhere in our lives of regrets of a foolish word spoken in haste don’t we?.
The question I’d like to leave you with today is this:
Who DO YOU THINK Jesus is.
Because your reply will fashion the way that you live
BECAUSE your answer will affect the way you LIVE your life.
Amen
