To capture the full scope of the story today we have to go back to what happened before. Luke tells us that Jesus had commissioned his disciples to preach and heal and sent them out all over Israel to carry out his mission. News of what was happening spread quickly and there was great excitement among the Jews. The reports even reached king Herod who began to inquire about just who this man named Jesus was. The reports that came back to him were varied. He was afraid Jesus was a reappearance of John the Baptist whom he had murdered. He said, “Who, then, is this I hear such things about?” And he wanted to see him. Herod’s emissaries reported that most people thought Jesus was Elijah or one of the other prophets.
After the account concerning Herod’s curiosity, we find the story of the feeding of the multitudes. It was an astounding miracle. But there was more to the miracle than the display of supernatural power. Jesus was identifying himself with the God of the exodus who fed his people in the desert with bread from heaven. Jesus was making a claim to be God — and backing it up with the appropriate proof. The connection was not lost on the people who were more than familiar with the story of Moses and God’s great provision for their ancestors in the desert.
It was in Caesarea Philippi where Jesus turned to his disciples and asked what the crowds were saying about him. It was a town named after Caesar, and a place where he was worshiped as lord. “Caesar is lord,” was a phrase heard constantly in this place. It was also a place of pagan worship. There were all kinds of gods and lords who were worshiped there. It was a turning point in the life of the disciples for them to understand who really was Lord and God. When Jesus asked who people were saying he was, he heard the same responses that were given to Herod when he inquired about Jesus: “Well, some say you are John the Baptist risen from the dead. Others say you are Elijah, the great prophet who is to come at the last day. Still others that you are one of the prophets from long ago who has come back to life.” “But what about you?” Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?” Then Peter, who was always the first to blurt something out, stated what was to him the obvious answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It was a dramatic statement and a breakthrough in the disciple’s understanding of Jesus. Their faith had blossomed and reached it’s objective.
An understanding of the Hebrew language helps to catch the significance of Peter’s response. The Greek word (Christos) “Christ” represented the Hebrew word for “Anointed,” or “Messiah.” It was a magic word to the ears of the Jew. The Messiah was the anointed of God, the holy One, the promised One who was to come. He would usher in the Kingdom of God. So Peter was saying, “You are the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed of God who was promised by the prophets in Scripture. As the Messiah, you will usher in God’s Kingdom on earth.” Peter’s words ring with truth and their veracity is confirmed by Jesus’ response to Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). Jesus was saying that the process of understanding who he is cannot merely be the result of intellectual investigation. This is something that must be revealed to you by the Holy Spirit of God.
It does not really matter to God what other people say about who Jesus Christ is, what matters is who you say he is. So don’t go looking to the polls or listening to public opinion, do your own reading of Scripture and make up your own mind. Pray that the Holy Spirit will lead your mind and give you faith. Don’t even believe everything you hear or read or see on TV. This is too important. You may have read about a group of scholars who call their efforts “The Jesus Seminar.” They have gone through the entire New Testament and decided that they can find only one statement that actually came from the mouth of a man named Jesus. Out of all the teaching of Christ found in the Scriptures they say that only the statement, found in Mark 12:17, genuinely came from Jesus: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” Don’t listen to the scholars, don’t even listen to the preacher — find out for yourself. Read God’s book. Discover the claims Jesus made about himself. Study the miracles. Scrutinize his life. See for yourself what his claims were and make up your own mind. Let your faith be your own. You can’t borrow my faith, your friend’s faith or your parent’s faith. It has to be something you believe because God has revealed it to you. You have to read the Book, and then you have to seek the mind of God for yourself to discover the truth.
C.S. Lewis, the great intellectual, in his classic book Mere Christianity, writes: “I’m trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher but I do not accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. 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 the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a mad man or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, You can spit at him and kill him as a demon; 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. He did not intend to.” So which will it be: lunatic, liar, or Lord? If his claims are true then he can be none other than Lord of the Cosmos. If they are not true then he is the greatest deceiver who ever lived or, at best, a lunatic worthy only of our pity.
Some of you have seen the film “Jesus Christ, Superstar.” In that film Jesus is portrayed as just an ordinary man, in fact, a human buffoon who is confounded by his popularity. He is subject to the allurements of Mary Magdalene, and a victim of the crowds who push him to a place of notoriety that eventually leads to his death. He is flashy, but his appeal is not his divinity, rather his humanity and his charismatic personality. The chorus of the musical says:
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar,
Do you think you’re what they say you are?
But the question is not who they said he was, but who he said he was. What he said was, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7). At his trial the high priest said to him, “‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied. ‘But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’” (Matthew 26:63-64). And many more scriptures could be cited where Jesus clearly made his claim of divinity. He was not a good man who became like God, he was God who became like a man.
The problem is that many people are more comfortable with a very human Jesus. We like him to be tame and innocuous. We like it that might have given in to temptation. We have painted him passive. We want him to be immensely kind and good, but not judgmental or demanding. We want him to be someone who will fit in with our ideas rather than ask us to fit in with his. We just want him to support us in our present lifestyle, and we don’t want him to ask us to change. We want him to fit into our life and not have him ask us to fit into his. We are comfortable thinking of him as a moral teacher, but we don’t want to think about him as our Judge who demands obedience from us. We like the image of him as a gentle shepherd, but the other biblical images make us uneasy. We like it when he says, “I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:29). We are less comfortable with the image of him at his return which is found in the book of Revelation: “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron scepter.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev. 19:11-16).
We would like a Jesus who has mass appeal and who has high ratings in the polls. We are content with a plastic Jesus, but not one who confronts us about who we are and how we live. We have formed in our minds a Jesus that is the way we want him to be. He is like us. We would like a Jesus who would cross his legs as he talked with Jay Leno. We want a Jesus who could appear on PBS and not offend anyone. But that was never the kind of man he was. Controversy swirled around him, and he aroused such hate in some that they rushed him to a violent death. He did not cater to popular whims and it cost him the world’s wrath. James R. Edwards, professor of religion at Jamestown College, has written, “A ‘designer’ Jesus who champions our causes and espouses our ideologies would have scarcely gotten himself crucified.”
His popularity was short lived because the radicalness of his message became more and more understood. We keep thinking that we can keep on living our placid little lives and have Jesus too, but he challenges us in a way that disturbs our complacent way of life and challenges us to a radical style of discipleship that may include self-denial and sacrifice. It is fully within Jesus’ right to ask for a denial and death to self, for that is exactly what he has done for us in order to provide us with a rich spiritual heritage and blessing.
When we confront the real Jesus we have to be prepared to give up our preconceived notions and follow him wherever he leads us. No one can keep Jesus in a box. He is his own person. Just when we think we have him all figured out he breaks out of our neat little compartments and surprises us. That is why it is exciting to know and live with Jesus Christ. He is full of surprises. He keeps the journey interesting. Sometimes it is a tough climb, but through it all we know we are loved and valued by the King of Heaven. He is with us every step of the way.
I have been corresponding through e-mail with a friend who is getting his Ph.D. in psychology. He has struggled with his faith and we have talking back and forth for some time. I had been concerned about him until I received this message from him: “My ‘mis-connection’ with God seems to be subsiding. My faith is being renewed and my acceptance of God’s plan for me is slowly coming back. Some days I just want to control life... I want to be the master and set my life on course... not depend on God. The reality I always return to is that this is not my life... my life belongs to God, and my purpose is to simply surrender to His will. To some this seems disconcerting... to me it is a great honor. It would be truly frightening should I be my own master and choose my own course... God help me!” There is a man who has come to the core of faith — the complete surrender of himself to the living God. Control is the issue that blocks our relationship with God — not doubt.
Who do you say Jesus is? Have you taken the trouble to find out? If you have, has your interest been merely academic, or are you pursuing a living, loving relationship with him? It is important to know who Jesus is, but it is more important to know him as a person. You can know about him and still not know him. Christianity is about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is about becoming like him and being a radical disciple of his. He is the one who knows you best and loves you most, and his desire is that you will know him and grow to love him as well.
It is significant that after Peter’s great confession the disciples witnessed in dramatic form the truth of what Peter had proclaimed. Jesus took Peter, James and John up to a mountain to pray. And there before their eyes he was transfigured. His appearance was like lightning, and surrounding him were the great citizens of heaven. The voice of God the Father spoke out of the brilliant cloud and said, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” Peter’s declaration of faith was confirmed by God himself. With his own eyes he saw the glory of Christ and his exalted place in the Kingdom. He was indeed the Christ of God, the Messiah, the promised One, the exalted One of heaven.
The day will come when we too will see Christ in all his glory. In fact, every eye shall see him. At that time, every sacrifice of earth will seem as nothing. Every loss will be a gain. Every problem will become a blessing. Every doubt will be turned to faith. Every death will be transformed to life. Every sorrow will be turned into joy and every tear will be dried. Don’t miss it for the world. Pray and read and think and reflect until you can come to the place of faith where you can say with Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It is the most important issue of faith you will ever face.
Rodney J. Buchanan
August 21, 2011
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
