In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed in on itself which made for big changes not only in Russia, but in Alaska as well. Russians were coming to Juneau, where we lived, for business ventures, educational excursions, and cultural exchanges. My wife and I had the opportunity to house some of the Russians on several occasions. There was one person I will never forget. Her name was Sylvia. She was probably about 50 years old. She grew up and was educated at Moscow University. She was living in Petropavlovsk on the east coast of Russia where she taught high school. She spoke excellent English with a sophisticated European accent. She had come to Juneau on a cultural exchange. During our time together we had many conversations about Russian life and American life. We talked about life under Communist rule and what life was like after Communist rule. Those conversations were interesting and enjoyable, but only one has stayed with me nearly word for word.
On our last full morning together Lynn and I got to talking and sharing about the blessings that we were thankful for. We had talked about some of the blessings before, but this morning Sylvia stopped us and asked what we meant by that word, “blessing.” I got out our Russian to English dictionary and both of us were surprised to find that there was no word in the dictionary that even came close to what blessing meant. We tried to explain the meaning the best we could. Finally, we told her that those blessings, those gifts of grace, come from and through Jesus Christ. I will never forget her reaction: she tilted her head as if trying to remember something and then said, “I have heard that name before. Who is this Jesus?”
Philip Yancey, a well-noted Christian journalist for Christianity Today, wrote a book entitled, The Jesus I Never Knew. He wanted to write a book about Jesus and found that he had camped out on some preconceived ideas about who Jesus was, but he had never really known Him. Philip Yancey is not so different from many Christians. We have ideas about Jesus from Sunday school and from preachers on Sunday mornings, but many of us have never really taken the time to look long and hard at who Jesus is through the lens of the gospels. Who is this Jesus? Do we really know Him or do we just know some things about Him?
In the gospel of Matthew Jesus pulled His disciples aside one day and asked them who the people said He was. They said, John the Baptist, a prophet, Elijah… I imagine them thinking a little about what the people had been saying, but then Jesus interrupted them and asked, “Who do you say I am?”
Someone once said that Jesus was the most self-centered person who has ever lived and, it’s true. I don’t say that in order to justify my own self-centeredness and claim that I can be just like Jesus. Jesus was without equal among human beings. What that person meant when he said that Jesus was the most self-centered person is that among every other religion, no other religious leader ever pointed to themselves as the object of worship like Jesus did. Those religious leaders pointed away from themselves and told people to follow the truth as they perceived it. No leader of the great religions ever said, Follow me. Jesus didn’t say I know the truth and I want you to follow the truth. Jesus said, “I am the Truth, follow me.” Jesus pointed to Himself.
Listen to what Jesus said about Himself:
• “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).
• “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
• “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
• “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
• “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” (Matthew 11:28-29).
Jesus grew up in the small town of Nazareth. After He began His ministry He came to His hometown and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and as a traveling rabbi He was given a scroll of the Old Testament. He stood up and read a passage from Isaiah.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor” (Isaiah 61:1-2).
Jesus closed the book while everyone looked to Him to discuss what it meant. Remember, they all knew Him; He grew up in their tiny little town. He looked out across the room and into the eyes of men He had known for years and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” You might not think much of His comment, but if we put His words into our modern vernacular what Jesus said was, “Isaiah was writing about Me.”
Jesus didn’t suffer from an inferiority complex. He was so confident about who He was that He didn’t ask if people would like to follow Him. He commanded them, “Follow Me, Come to Me.” And, if people followed, Him He promised to give them rest. He promised to lift their burdens. If they came to Him He promised to feed them and satisfy their thirst.
For centuries the Jewish prophets had been pointing to God Almighty and telling men to believe in God, but Jesus came along and pointed to Himself. He told people to love Him, to believe in Him. In fact, He said, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29).
Have you ever stopped to consider just how audacious Jesus’ words really are? He said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. We all agree with that. But then in the gospel of Matthew He was so outrageous as to say that anyone who loved father, mother, son or daughter more than they loved Jesus was not worthy of Him. Who would say such a thing?
In the gospel of Luke Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – Yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Who points to himself like that? Who is so self-centered to say those kinds of things? Who is this Jesus?
Before His crucifixion He told the people gathered around Him, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). Do you understand what Jesus was saying? His crucifixion would certainly be a testimony about Jesus’ love, but He said that when He was crucified people wouldn’t necessarily be drawn to God the Father; they wouldn’t be drawn to the church, neither to truth nor to righteousness. No, what He said is that if He were lifted up He would draw all men to Himself. That is how essential Jesus saw Himself and in drawing men and women to Himself they would also be drawn to God the Father, to the church, to the truth, and to righteousness, but He was confident that the only way to enjoy those was to first come to Him. All of these self-centered statements of Jesus were uttered by the same person who insisted on humility from others.
By the time that Jesus began His ministry, Jewish doctrine had come to hold very firmly that the title “Son of Man,” which Daniel had spoken about, pointed to the coming Messiah. The leading rabbis of the time interpreted the title ‘Son of God’ in Psalm 2 as also speaking of the coming Messiah. Jesus was so sure of Himself and who He was that He called Himself the Son of Man during His entire ministry. Jesus also saw Himself as the Son of God. Listen to the conversation between Jesus and the chief priests after He was arrested:
At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. “If you are the Christ,” they said, “tell us.”
Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.”
They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?”
He replied, “You are right in saying I am.” (Luke 22:66-70)
The fact that He did not dispute the title Son of God convicted Jesus in the eyes of the Jewish leaders. Jesus didn’t back-peddle. He went to the cross and never recanted any of what He had claimed.
It wasn’t just Jesus’ claims about Himself that stirred people, it was also the things He said He could do that made people stop and consider who this person was. When Jesus was in a house and some men lowered a paralyzed man down through the roof, Jesus looked at the man and said, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Every Jew knew that they could go to the temple and offer a sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sins. But they also knew that neither the priest, nor the animal being sacrificed could forgive their sins, only God had that power. So imagine the astonishment of the religious leaders who were in that house when Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” But Jesus didn’t leave it at that. He looked around the room and said in effect, “I know what you’re thinking; only God can forgive sins. But think about it, what’s easier, to tell this man get up and walk or to forgive his sins? And with that, Jesus told the man to get up and walk. That paralyzed man got up and walked out of the house.
Who is this Jesus?
Whenever Jesus addressed the crowds and taught them about God and about the relationship of God with His people or about how they should live, the people’s response was always the same. “Who is this man?” “Where did he get such wisdom?” But most of all, what the people saw was the authority with which Jesus taught. The Pharisees quoted other men when they taught. Rabbi so and so says this. The prophets taught in the words of God by saying, “Thus says the Lord.” But not Jesus. When Jesus taught He said, “You have heard that it was said, but I say to you…” He Himself was His own authority.
Jesus was so convinced of who He was that He called God His Father. In fact, He told His disciples, “I and the Father are one.” When He and the disciples were walking toward the garden of Gethsemane on Thursday evening Jesus said to them,
“I am the way, 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).
Philip, said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Listen carefully to Jesus’ reply:
“Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” (John 14:9-11)
What Jesus was telling Philip and the rest of the disciples is this: even if you can’t wrap your heads around the fact that I am one with the God of the universe then at least look at the miracles I have performed as proof of who I am. If only God can do those things, then who do you say I am?
Even if we get bogged down on some of Jesus’ claims about Himself can we really negate the miracles He performed? He didn’t do those things to impress anyone, but to prove that He was who He said He was.
If John had any doubts as to who Jesus was while he walked with Jesus, those doubts all faded away. The opening words of his gospel dispel any doubt in John’s mind:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:1-3).
From his gospel we now know that John believed Jesus to have been with God in the beginning before time began. John believed Jesus to be the creator of the universe. He believed Jesus to be God wrapped in human flesh. And John believed Jesus to be who He said He was.
The apostles came to believe that Jesus was who He said He was and their lives were never the same. They lived their lives for Jesus and because of Jesus, and died because of Jesus. They saw Jesus as their Lord and Master and saw themselves as His slaves forever in His service and in His debt. When someone asked them, “Who is this Jesus?” They knew exactly who He was and they lived their lives proving that they knew Him.
Do we know this Jesus?
