Cary Grant, the movie star, once told how he was walking along a street and started to pass by a man who began staring at him with a look of excited recognition. The man said, “Wait a minute, you’re... you’re — I know who you are; don’t tell me... uh, Rock Hud... No, you’re....” The famous actor interrupted him, thinking he would help him out a bit, and finished the man’s sentence: “Cary Grant?” But the fellow said, “No, that’s not it! You’re....” The irony was that Cary Grant was standing right in front of the man and identified himself to him, but he would not take Cary Grant’s word for it. He was sure that he was not who he said he was, and yet equally sure that he knew who he was — even though he was completely wrong.
Jesus often found himself in the same situation as Cary Grant. He stood in front of people and claimed to be the incarnate presence of God, yet people said to him, “No, that’s not it. You must be someone else — a prophet, or John the Baptist back from the dead” (Matthew 16:14). Jesus made claims to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, Deity itself (Mark 14:61-62, John 10:33), yet people confronted with this truth said, “Surely, that’s not who you are. You must be someone else. The miracles are impressive, but you could not be Messiah. We know where Messiah comes from and what he will be like, and you don’t match the description we had in our minds” (John 9:29). John spoke the truth when he said, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him” (John 1:10).
It is incredible, is it not, that the Scriptures are so clear in telling us who Jesus is, and yet we still seem so uncertain about his identity? I remember very clearly preaching in another church about the divinity of Christ. After the service a woman approached me and said, “I could not believe what you said today about Jesus being God. It sounds like something from a cult?” She had been in the church all her life, and somehow the truth of the divinity of Christ had never made its way into her conscious mind. It is as though she had never understood the word “Trinity” (God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and its implications. At Christmas she had sung about Immanuel, and heard the Scripture read which says, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel — which means, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23), but she never understood its meaning. She had heard the word “incarnation” and never realized it meant that God had come “in the flesh” to live among us.
This morning I want us to take a trip through the Scriptures so that we might understand who Jesus Christ really is. He has said about himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). I want us to explore what that means. The first thing we need to understand about Jesus Christ is: He is the Way. He is not just one of the ways among many. He is THE way. The only way. If what he said is true, then there are not many paths to God; there is only one. The way is not a path or a road, the way is a person. If we would take a poll and ask people who they think Jesus Christ is, we would get a variety of answers, similar to the response Jesus received when he asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” They said, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” Then Jesus said, “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mark 8:27-29, Matthew 16:16). Then Jesus said, “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). At this point the polls were wrong. The opinion of the majority did not change the truth or dictate reality. Peter knew who Jesus really was, and in spite of what everyone else thought, he held to the truth.
What did Jesus mean by saying, “I am the way”? He meant that he was the way to God. He meant that there was no other way. The Buddha is not the way. Mohammed is not the way. Krishna is not the way. Jesus is the way. Listen carefully as he says, “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). Now, if a person does not want to believe that, it is their prerogative. But there can never be any question about the fact that Jesus made this astounding claim: To see Jesus is to see the Father. There is no other way to God except through him. He is the exclusive Savior. He is the universal Savior. There is no other savior, and he is the Savior of all. There is one Savior, Jesus Christ, and he is available to all people.
In the New Testament we find people who worshiped all kinds of things. We find animists, that is, those who worship the spirits which they believe inhabit things like trees and mountains, rivers and sky. (This is the religion portrayed in the Disney movie Pocahontas.) There were those who, like the Samaritans, worshiped a god who was an aberration of Israel’s God. There were those like the Romans and Greeks who worshiped an entire pantheon of gods. Some worshiped animals or ancestors, but all were called to repentance and to the worship of the one true and living God. Paul wrote to the Romans explaining that salvation came from the Jews, who had been privileged to receive the revelation of the one true God. He said, “Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!” (Romans 9:5). It never occurred to the early Christians to affirm other religions, or treat them as equally valid. They were filled with a passion to bring the truth of a universal Savior to the whole world. It was their passion because, out of love for other people, they understood that their message was the only hope for a lost world. This is why we are concerned about missions and reaching those who do not know Christ, because there is no hope outside of Christ for them to be saved. I read recently where a religious leader in a major denomination said, “Why do so many Christians think they need to convert people in other religions to Christianity?” He then proceeded to compare evangelism and missions to ethnic cleansing.
In speaking of Jesus, the Bible says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). This exclusive message is difficult for people in our culture to hear. Surveys of American opinion are telling us that the people of the United States are more open to spiritual things than ever before. However, this openness to spirituality is just as likely to lead to involvement in New Age spirituality, goddess worship, Eastern mysticism, or satanic cults as it is to Christianity. I saw a bumper sticker in town once that said, “My goddess gave birth to your God.” Another one said, “Where there is a witch there is a way.” We live in an age of spiritual confusion which is uneasy about absolute truth, and wants to be able to choose from a smorgasbord of religions. We are heavily impacted by the influence of television and movies, books and magazines, internet religion and deceivers which Christ warned about. An article in the Columbus Dispatch recently quoted a protestant pastor as saying, “What’s the big deal about Jesus? ...God offers believers many religious paths to reach one eternal destination.” There may be many paths up the same mountain, but it matters little if it s the wrong mountain.
Someone told me they saw a recent PBS special on the life of Christ where a supposed scholar said that Jesus faked his death and walked out of the grave where he had been placed so that it would appear he had been resurrected from the dead. He then ran off to an unknown land with Mary Magdalene, with whom he had been having an affair. Jesus said, “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many” (Matthew 24:4-5). Certainly his words are being fulfilled in our day as never before, and in the days ahead it will only get worse. People will be confused and give up trying to understand, believing it is impossible to really know anything.
Secondly, Jesus is the exclusive Savior because: He is the Truth. Jesus spoke to his disciples saying, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). What did Jesus mean by saying, “I am the Truth”? He was not just saying that he was truthful, or that his teachings were true; he was saying that he was Truth incarnate. He is the embodiment of truth. He not only spoke truth; he is Truth. Truth is not a teaching, Truth is a Person.
Why is truth so important? Why can’t we just believe that it is fluid and changing with time and circumstance, and fashioned by opinion? Because the truth is how we get in touch with reality. Because without truth we cannot know the true and living God. If our lives are not built on the foundation of truth they are built on a lie and our whole life becomes a sham. As Christians we are awaiting the appearance of Truth at his second coming into the world. The Bible says, “We wait for the blessed hope — the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:12-13).
In Jesus’ famous prayer for us, he prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). What is the truth? Truth is a Person. Paul wrote to the Philippians saying, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:7-11).
As God, Jesus Christ was preexistent and active in creation. In the first chapter of the Bible we hear God saying, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). As a part of the Trinity, Jesus Christ has always existed and was living before the creation of the world. He was a participant in creation, for the Bible says, “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). In the book of Colossians we read, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:15-17).
The Gospel of John gives this incredible witness to the deity of Christ: “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:16-18). In First John we read, “We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true — even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).
Jesus himself declared the truth of who he was. He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). He said, “I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35), “I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12), “I am God’s Son” (John 10:36), “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:11). When Jesus said to the Pharisees, “I and the Father are one,” the Bible says, “Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’” They replied: “We are not stoning you for any of these, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33). You see, they understood the claim that Jesus was making!
Jesus is the Way. He is the Truth. And the final point is that because he is the Way and the Truth: He is the Life. Life is a person. Jesus Christ has come to offer us life — life abundant here and now. Eternal life in the future which will be beyond anything we could dream in our wildest fantasies. No one else can make and fulfill that promise. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). He said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). In the end, finding the way means finding life. Believing the truth brings us real life, but believing a lie brings ruin.
In his allegory The Singer, Calvin Miller helps us to see behind the scenes of a supernatural war which took place in the time between the cross and the empty tomb. Christ is portrayed as the Troubadour who brings his song of love to the world. But the world is ruled by Satan, known as World Hater in the book. When the Troubadour is being tortured, World Hater cries out to God, “Look how he dies. Cry, Creator, Cry! This is my day to stand upon the breast of God and claim my victory over love. You lost the gamble. In but an hour your lover will be pulp upon the gallows. Did you tell him when his fingers formed the world, that he would die on [earth], groaning with his hands crushed in my great machine?” “He laughed and turned to look again upon the Troubadour. ‘Now, who will sing the Father’s Song?’ he asked the dying man.” But the story does not end there. Miller writes, “World Hater reached the threshold of eternity and found the doorway of the worlds, not only open, but clearly ripped away. He strained to hear the everlasting wail, the eternal dying which he loved. All was silent. Then he heard the Song.” “‘No!’ he cried. ‘Give me back the door and key for this is my domain.’ He felt again and found the great key at his waist had disappeared. He steeled himself for the battle out ahead. He would have to fight the Song. He would fight with every weapon in his arsenal of hate. But he knew that he would lose. And he knew that when the course of time was done, the door would be put back upon the Canyon of the Damned, and he would be locked in with all the discord of the universe. And he would suffer with all of those he had taught to hate the Song.”
Jesus Christ has come to give us life, and in spite of all that evil can do, the Song goes on — and God is inviting you to join the chorus.
Rodney J. Buchanan
May 22,2011
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
