Who is Jesus to you?
Luke 9:18 – 27
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
18 And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him,
and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?” They
answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one
of the prophets of old has risen.” 20 And He said to them, “But who do you say
that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” But He warned
them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone, 22 saying, “The Son of Man
must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes,
and be killed and be raised on the third day.” 23 And He was saying to them all,
“If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily,
and follow Me. 24 “For whoever wants to save his 1life will lose it, but whoever
loses his 2life for My sake, this is the one who will save it. 25 “For what good does
it do a person if he gains the whole world, but loses or forfeits himself? 26 “For
whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of
him when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and the holy angels.
27 “But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will
not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”
In the ninth chapter of Luke starting on the 18th verse and going to the 27th we have
Jesus asking a very interesting question. The question is: Who am I? At first, it seems a
bit odd that Jesus would have to ask who he was, but he was really looking to find out
what people thought of him. A little bit of history is in order here to let you know that
hundreds of people have been going in and out of all the holy land saying they were the
Messiah for numerous years after the last prophet. The conclusion of the people was
that God was about to send his most special prophet, who was the Messiah.
There were five general ideas about what was going to happen when the Messiah
arrived. Jesus did not fulfill any of them. It wasn’t until after his death that the book of
Isaiah was examined with Zachariah chapter 9 verse nine and the people figured out
that Jesus was the Messiah. The first appearance of the Messiah was to bring back the
spiritual kingdom of God. The second appearance, we call it the second coming of
Jesus, will be to win back the holy land and restore the Kingdom of Israel physically.
I think it is interesting that the author in the creation of the story had some of the
disciples saying to Jesus that people were calling him John the Baptist. There was a
belief that John the Baptist, who was beheaded several chapters earlier, could return to
life. That would be quite unusual because Jesus was six months younger than John the
Baptist. However, there was a belief that anything was possible with God, and could it
be that God would be sending John the Baptist back? That idea did not get a lot of
traction in the ancient world. Rather, the idea that Jesus was Elijah did.
According to tradition, Elijah the prophet was going to return to introduce the Messiah
to the world. According to what we called midrash stories of Jesus time; the prophet
Elijah would physically return. There was a belief that when God took Elijah in the fiery
chariot up to heaven, he stripped the soul out of the body and God placed the body in
a northern cavern where nobody could find it. It might sound a bit strange to you, but
if the belief was that Elijah was going to return, he needed a body. Therefore, the
midrash goes on to say that when Elijah returned, his soul would reenter his body, and
he would be among us. Of course, there was another belief that the spirit of Elijah
would come back, meaning that a prophet would be brought up out of the people who
acted and sounded just like Elijah.
In Christian tradition, the Elijah doppelgänger is John the Baptist. The Gospels tell us
that John the Baptist was the one who announced Jesus to the crowds, therefore
fulfilling the tradition that Elijah would return and tell us all about the coming of the
Messiah. John the Baptist was not Elijah, but rather he acted in the spirit of Elijah. And
as we know from the stories of John the Baptist doing all the baptisms in the Jordan, it
was a well-accepted understanding.
Then Peter looked at Jesus and said you are the Christ of God in Luke’s gospel. He’s
saying you are the Messiah of God. The Greek word for Messiah is being used in the
English text instead of it being translated to the word Messiah. When you say Jesus
Christ, you are saying Jesus, the Messiah of God. I always got a good chuckle when
church people would tell me that Christ was Jesus’ last name. In the time that Jesus
lived, there was no such thing as family names in that respect.
After this identification, Jesus informed his disciples that he had to suffer many things
and be rejected by the elders, the priests, and scribes of the day. To those of you who
read the Bible regularly, especially the Old Testament, know that every prophet who
goes into Jerusalem to tell the king that is not following God’s way was killed. Jesus
knew when he took his message of peace and joy and the kingdom of God into the
Jewish religious leadership that it would result in death. However, Jesus followed God’s
words and commandments, and he did what God told him to do.
Now comes an interesting thing, where Jesus says about picking up your cross. Since
the crucifixion did not happen yet, and the disciples really don’t know how it’s going to
happen yet, even though we really do, Jesus being placed on the cross is not a given. In
fact, if the Jewish people wanted to kill him for blasphemy, they would have stoned him
to death. If that happened, then the writer would’ve said you got to pick up your own
stones every day instead of picking up your cross. Regardless of whether Jesus said a
stone or a cross, it’s the metaphorical meaning that the author is telling us. He is saying
to be a follower of Jesus Christ is not an easy task, and in Jesus’ day and for 300 years
after that, it could mean death.
Jesus also adds that those who come to follow him but then turn around and leave
because they don’t want to take the risk, Luke says to being ashamed of Jesus caused
on to forfeit their life. What is meant is that they lost their salvation. When Jesus said
death to Sheol, he was talking about our disconnect with God. If your soul goes to
Sheol for eternity, you are cut off from God. Therefore, you don’t want that, and it’s
better to be connected to God, so even if things get tough, it’s better to be a follower
of Jesus than it is to reject him. One of the last things he says in this passage is that one
day he will return. That fits into the idea of the coming of the Messiah twice as we find
in Zachariah chapter 9.
How do we deal with that today? If I asked you to tell me who Jesus was to you, could
you do it? Before I entered the church to become a believer in Jesus, I asked that
question, and you would not believe how difficult it was to get an answer. The easy
answer was oh Jesus is God. And I would say, so what does that mean? I would also
ask, how does that change your life?
Every disciple of Jesus Christ must be able to answer the question of who is Jesus to
you? If you’re going to talk to people who are not believers in Jesus, you must be ready
for that question. It was surprising how many times I ran into that situation. I ran three
classes on evangelism for church folk. That was my first question after, please tell me
your name and why you’re here. The common response was: Jesus is considered God.
Then we spent the introduction to the evangelism class developing what each person
thought Jesus meant to them.
So, if you cannot answer that question beyond Jesus is God, I humbly say to you that
you should spend a few moments trying to figure out how to answer that question. You
may even want to write that answer down so that you can message it and have it ready
to go. It doesn’t have to be something that’s pretty and polished and has beautiful
wording and beautiful grammar. Rather, it should be something that comes out of your
heart and my guess is you probably never even thought about it because you have never
been asked that question. And here I am asking you that question: who is Jesus to you?
