Intro: (Daylight Savings Time) Last night we changed our clocks…because of particular practical needs…time is changed. On a grand scale God has done the same…Based on a need in the human condition…God is said to have entered the world not simply to change temporal time, but eternity…and this in the figure known as Jesus…Jesus the Christ.
It fascinates me that this figure…Jesus…never pursued widespread prominence in any common practical manner. Didn’t write a memoir or best seller; didn’t head for the big cities; didn’t seek to reach the social and political leaders of the day…rather he proclaimed and demonstrated the Kingdom of God and said “wait and see”…and that’s precisely what happened…all human history is dated around his life…2,000 years later lives are equally challenged and changed.
Recently a man was sharing a scene not so hard to imagine…airport…several planes unloaded…his terminal corridor became a solid flow of people heading towards the main terminal…one of those golf cart like carts began heading towards them…with an amber light flashing…and intermittent beeps it was forcing the mass of humanity to one side or the other…everybody had to make a choice.
A fitting image of how God’s Word describes Christ’s coming into our fallen world…a world worthy of judgment will be judged, not by how we meet God’s standards, but how we respond to the one who extends his grace and pays the price for our debt…how we respond to Jesus. A judgment in which there are those who chose, those who refuse; no middle camp, no middle ground.
What is it about Jesus that demands such reaction?
It’s not a question of his existence…His life is profoundly rooted in history.
Go to Encyclopedia. Learn of his life and times. Encyclopedia Britannica uses 20,000 word’s describing the person of Jesus; more space than Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, or Napoleon.
Go and visit his birthplace…where he was baptized, taught and was crucified.
Nor is it his basic ideology and values that are so confronting and controversial.
· Nearly everyone appreciates …and we even are astounded at what he taught regarding concerns for truth, justice and the poor. His contributions to human history are unparallel and unquestioned; transforming barbaric cultures; establishing a basis of dignity and equality for all people, including women, children, the sick and socially outcast. It’s neither his mere existence nor example that force a choice.
What truly confronts us…and demands a choice is this, HIS CLAIM TO BE FROM GOD…TO BE GOD’S ONLY SON…GOD INCARNATE - to be God entering creation like a painter painting themselves into their own painting, or a writer appearing in their own movie…as Alfred Hitchcock frequently did. (Heb. 1:1-3) He’s offering salvation from our separation from God, …forgiving our sins by offering His own life, calling us to REPENT…to RECEIVE HIM…To FOLLOW HIM. It’s those “I AM” statements he made that remove all room for neutrality or mild approval.
· “Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;” John 11:25
· “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 (cf. John 6:35, 40; Mark 14:62)
· When Peter said, You are the Christ, the son of the Living God, Jesus said, You got it right Peter…I am…and that’s what God will build his eternal Kingdom on.
· When on trial, the high priest along with Pilate asked, Are You the Christ?
He answered “I am” (MK. 14:62)
When the priest heard his claim he tore his robe from top to bottom. He chose his response…and many have refused Him as well; but millions of others have received him, found his forgiveness and love; worship him unashamedly, follow him courageously…no matter the cost.
This morning I pose the ultimate question to us;
· What is your response to Christ? Who is Jesus to you?
· The question is not about cultural or family background, or do you attend church. THE QUESTION IS WHO IS HE TO YOU?
I want to take a few minutes to consider with you the basis of this question; to ask you to reason with me in your heart as well as your mind for honest reasoning must search the heart as well as satisfy the mind. I want to begin by EVALUATING THE ATTEMPTS FOR ANOTHER OPTION…that is, any other option than reckoning with Jesus for who he claimed to be; and consider if any such options have a greater basis of reason.
1. A MYTH…that is, that he never really made such claims…that his disciples and those who knew him made it all up…and therefore we must go back and decide who he really was.
This is really a modern idea, generally reflecting modern circles of disbelieving scholars in search of an “historical” Jesus; by historical they want to come up with an alternative to the historical records. This ultimately involves removing portions of the Gospel records based on the presupposition that such records reflect the wishful thinking of those who actually knew him or of him.
It may strike you as a rather unusual or even arrogant to claim to better understand history than those who wrote it at the time, not to mention all the centuries that followed. But the real question is, first of all, does it have a greater reasonable basis? Consider the following….
· The gospels claim and read as simply historical
“That which was from the beginning, which we have HEARD, which we have SEEN with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have TOUCHED this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” 1 John 1:1 (cf. Luke 1:1-3, 2 Peter 1: 16-21)
The Gospel accounts are full of historical detail including their own foolishness and failures as disciples. Reads like a “tell it like it is” accounting, no attempt to be poetic or profound. Four separate sources, each confirming the essence of the other accounts without trying to corroborate the exact chronology. There is simply no sign or sense of some fantasy or false ideal, but rather a pulling of actual accounts together.
· The reliability of the Gospel records are unparallel, 10 times the reliability of texts…that is, the amount of early manuscripts, than the second most reliable piece from history…which is the Iliad.
· The Gospels accounts are too early to be a fabrication of facts.
Those that attempt to presume that the uncomfortable claims are mythical admit that they would have to develop 2-3 generations later…even centuries later. That is simply not the case with the New Testament; Jesus died in the year 30 AD; the Gospel accounts were immediately reported in both oral and likely shorter written forms until formally compiled between what generally scholars believe to be between 50-75 AD.
> The accounts which were received were those offered within the lifetime of those with whom Christ lived.
You can’t produce and promote a myth in it’s own time and place.
· The Gospel accounts are recognized by early historians.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, writing about AD 93 or 94 in his Antiquities of the Jews, speaks about the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.
“About this time there arose Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful deeds, and a teacher of men who gladly receive the truth. He drew to himself many both of the Jews and of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, on the indictment of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved him at the first did not cease to do so, for he appeared to them again alive on the third day, the divine prophets having foretold these and ten thousand wonderful things about him. And even to this day the race of Christians, who are named after him, has not died out.” (This version is based on the Greek text, which dates from the fourth century.)
· The divine claims are the very basis…and the most reasonable basis for the trial and crucifixion of Christ.
He wasn’t crucified for being a good teacher…he was put on trial and crucified for his claims of being God…the Christ…Messiah…the Savior sent to forgive all sins.
[Might add, if these early Gospel accounts are a lie, one would have to answer who invented the lie and for what reason. A liar always has a selfish motive…at least a protective motive. To proclaim Jesus as the risen Messiah only meant suffering his same fate.]
…So why the current fascination with the option of presuming Christ as we know him to be a myth? Perhaps, it’s in part because sensationalism sells; because public attention is more often a product of marketability rather than merit, and questions its appeal more than its approach
This is which is equally true of the next option ….
2. A GURU – that is, his claims are true but not meant to be understood in their common Jewish meaning, but rather in an Eastern-Mystical sense…that he intended to show us how we can all be gods.
First of all, those claiming such an enlightened understanding would have to conclude that Jesus utterly failed, that he never got his point across for 2,000 years.
This idea, popular among those promoting New Age ideas, often involves claiming that Jesus went to India as a boy and learned from Hindu gurus of the time.
The problem is, there is simply no historical basis for either such influence in his life nor for perceiving his own teachings in this light.
· Jesus is fundamentally Jewish in the context and content of all he said and did.
· Eastern mystics believe God is unknowable except as common impersonal/force. Jesus as a Jew proclaimed God as distinct from the world, and knowable.
· For Eastern mystics, God is passive; for Jesus as a Jew, God is the active initiator.
· For Eastern mystics, there is no judgment…no hell; for Jesus as a Jew, there is ultimate justice and judgment. The simple fact is, Jesus was a Jew and never told anyone to convert from Judaism. He said he came to fulfill the Law and the prophets, not to destroy them.
The only way to promote such a depiction of Jesus is to pick a few of his words out of context, connect him with early Jewish mystics-which in truth were still Jewish in their beliefs-and then ignore all primary historical accounts and rational thinking.
I would contend, there is simply no comparably reasonable basis for assuming Jesus to be a guru of Eastern ideas, and his claims to be anything else than what they are.
…so if the most reasonable belief is that Jesus’ claims are real, and clearly understood, only two options remain.
3. A LAIR – His claims are an evil hoax that went to far. If not truly divine, then he’s the most deceiving and evil of all men.
· Yet historians clearly recognize that his life has set the highest standard of morality…the polar opposite of an evil man in every regard.
· Who would die for a lie? If just pulling everybody’s leg about the deity thing, don’t you think that when he was hauled up on the cross and they raised the nails to his hands…he’d say, “just kidding.”?
> RATIONAL LYING ENDS WHEN THE LIE DOESN’T WORK!
It’s neither fitting of Jesus nor logic to consider him a liar…which leads to the only other option.
4. A LUNATIC-that he sincerely but wrongly believed his claims. If not divine, then he’s completely demented and psychotic.
· Certainly there are those in mental institutions today who believe they are Jesus; and there have even been a few who could convince a few others of this if they were all kept secluded; but their instability of thought never holds up in the broader public perception.
Such rare personalities have a consistent and clear profile: narcissistic, inflexible, and an unable to love and relate to others in a stable way…to name a few.
…the polar opposite of everything we know of Jesus. Experts in psychology have looked at Jesus with a fine tooth comb and haven’t found even the smallest sign of instability. He is a picture of profound emotional and relational stability; steady in adversity, calm in a crisis, stable in relationships. There’s no reasonable basis to accept him as a lunatic.
This leaves us only one option…HIS CLAIMS ARE TRUE, that he is who he said he was, just as those who first knew him discovered he was…and from this we can add another line of reasoning, and ask if there is any…..
CONFIRMING EVIDENCE WE MIGHT EXPECT IF DIVINE.
1. We might assume that his life is the fulfillment of that which God had prepared and pointed to. Did God point to such a divine entry into our world?
There are over 300 references to the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament…written over a period of 2,000 years.
God wrote an address in human history. Using the science of probability, it has been calculated that the chances of just 48 of these prophesies being fulfilled in any one person to be one in ten to the 157th power (that’s one followed by 157 zeros.)
2. Might expect him to have led a perfect life – If I claimed …divine…perfect…my family and any of you who know me could wipe that thought out in a moment. The truth is, if you go poking around into the private lives of any religious leaders…divine perfection simply won’t be an option.
Yet one time Jesus even asked a group of his most ardent enemies if they could find any wrong in him…and his detractors stood in total silence. Here was the great chance to finally shut down this figure who had threatened them so much…but they couldn’t.
3. Might expect MIRACLES…power over sickness…over nature…, which Jesus demonstrated…and even secular historians refer to.
4. Might expect him to overcome death. He did! And the historical evidence, which is beyond us to take up here, has equal historical basis.
He’s the only figure who asks you to follow him who isn’t in a grave somewhere!
This is the risen Christ who confronts every life.
· His claims are true and leave no room for simply mild approval.
· Rather his claims call us to surrender our autonomous and self-willed lives to His forgiveness and leadership or face a future on our own.
· There is no more vital truth to reckon with; like the cart in the airport, the amber light is coming. The beeping can be heard.
· How often weather forecasters have warned of storms…like those in recent years…and many ignored them…or thought they could take their time.
· Often we fear that if we choose one side…that of choosing Jesus, then it has implications for those we love…that we might be divided by our choice. We think somehow we can refuse sides and avoid the implications of what those we love decide. The truth is, to make no choice is to make a choice, and a wrong choice can’t help anyone.
· Or perhaps, you’re tempted to sit back and think that to choose Jesus is too exclusive; especially in an age that values open mind-ness above all else.
· The truth is exclusive; 1+1=2, not 3 or 4, and you can’t change it by refusing it.
· We do well to recognize that while open-mindedness may appear virtuous; the truly great virtue is open-heartedness, and that is what Christ offers us.
· How often we want to keep our ideas of God abstract and safe. As C.S. Lewis describes…
“Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. “Look out!” we cry, “it’s alive.” And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back…I would have done so myself if I could…and proceed no further with Christianity. An impersonal God…well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads…better still. A formless life-force, surging through us, a vast power which we can tap…best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband…that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (“Man’s search for God”!) suddenly draw back. Suppose we really found him! We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing he had found us?”
(Miracles, chapter 11, paragraph 19, page 94)
IT’S NOT A GAME… Don’t be fooled to believe we live outside the basic reality of responsibility. I believe each of us has in some way been visited by Jesus…told “you know I’m real...the road you’re walking on is a dead end…you need my forgiveness…freedom from your shame…and my love at the center of your life.
Today is an opportunity to respond…to change direction in response to Jesus.
Might wonder…“What do I do?” Simply…
· Admit your sinfulness…that you’re self-willed….that you’ve fallen short.
· Ask God to forgive you. Receive His forgiveness through the sacrifice of Christ for your sins… and freedom from the shame that he bore on your behalf.
· And receive him into your heart… his love and leadership.
· Can be as simple as saying, “I’m choosing to turn from my self willed life… to receive Christ…his forgiveness, grace, and leadership in my life.”
To all of you who have already believed, “How close are you following him?” The Bible says some followed him “from afar.” Has the person of Jesus become something on the side of your life? Do you want to give him the centrality in your life…to follow him more closely?
Let each of us settle life’s ultimate question.
