Oct 24, 1999
WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? (Matthew 22:34-49)
The revealing titles of a biography just published of
Indonesia's new president, Abdurrahman Wahid, is: "Gus Dur:
Who are you?" It is quite common for us to learn that we
know very little about our leaders even though they are
widely reported on by modern media. According to the book,
many associates for the new President state that they really
don't know him. They are divided as to whether he is
brilliantly clever or utterly naïve in his political
strategies.
The publication of the biography on former President
Ronald Reagan , DUTCH, after l4 years of the most intimate
observation by the biographer, is another example of a
public figure who at the end of his chronicled career
remains unknown to most people including many who spent
years in personal service to him.
So it can be no surprise that we do not know all we might
want to know about Jesus of Nazareth who lived 2,000 before
the instant analysis of CNN and the documentation of the
Internet. We have only one basis web site on Jesus and that
is the scriptures. And the scriptures present diverse images
of Jesus.
Even his friends arrived at differing undertstandings
about him ranging from a wandering teacher, who had no where
to lay his head (Mat. 8:20 and Luke 9:58) to the Cosmic
Christ through whom and by whom everything in heaven and on
earth was created.( Col. 1:15-17)
The many views of Jesus may not be contradictory but they
have led to quite different religious communities in the
Lutherans, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Orthodox and hundreds
of other Jesus groups who arrive at differing places in the
Christian spectrum.
Jesus encouraged this diversity of response because he
seldom spoke clearly and emphatically about himself. Today's
text is a case in point. To his question to the other
rabbis, "What do you think of the Messiah? Who's son is
he?", we might wish that Jesus had gone on to state without
any ambiguity: "Look, guys, I'm the Messiah. I'm the Son of
God."
He did not do so. Perhaps he wanted all his followers to
make up their own minds and hearts about the Messiah.
At any rate, the Church went on to answer the question
that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God.
Although it took another four centuries for the church to
arrive at the conclusion, as it did at the Council of
Chalcedon, that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.
The rabbis to whom Jesus put the question responded in
terms of their tradition. The Messiah for them was the son
of David, that is, a yet to be born descendant of the family
and tribe of David.
Jesus is not satisfied with their traditional response
because he cites to them a little known verse from Psalm
l00: "The Lord says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I
put your enemies under your feet." This is traditionally a
psalm attributed to King David. And Jesus' point is that
David is addressing God as the first Lord and the second as
the Messiah, so how could David be the father of the
Messiah.
Jesus did many impressive things and regularly claimed a
great authority but he was quite modest when linking himself
to God the Father. The only title that Jesus regularly used
in self-reference, and it is a strange one, is Son of Man.
His followers during his earthly life called him "rabbi"
which in English bibles is translated as "Teacher" and
"Master." After the Resurrection the Church liked to address
Jesus as "Lord."
Most Christians agree that the New Testament has got
right, more or less, what we know and need to know to
conclude that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of
God, the Savior.
But how the New Testament teaches that Jesus is the Son
of God is not derived from Jesus' own self-identification.
The statement "Jesus is God" occurs no where in the Gospels
even though it has often been made into the watchword of
Christian orthodoxy. The overwhelming weight of the New
Testament way of speaking about Jesus is plainly on the side
of distinguishing Jesus from God. Paul's statement may be
taken as an apt summary: "FOR US THERE IS ONE GOD, THE
FATHER…AND ONE LORD, JESUS CHRIST. (1Cor. 8:6). The
honorific of LORD, rather than GOD, was the early Church's
preferred title for Jesus the Christ.
The sole uncontroverted instance of Jesus himself being
named "God" is in doubting Thomas's confession: MY LORD AND
MY GOD" addressed to the Risen Lord (John 20:28). Biblical
scholars immediately inform us that this is probably a
formula from John's own time, not Jesus, made by defiant
believers in response to the claim of the Emperor Domitian
to be "our Lord and God."
Fundamentalist Christians fear that the recurring debates
about who is Jesus and what can we really know about him, a
process currently given fame or infamy by the long going
Jesus Seminar, will weaken and diminish our faith in Jesus
Christ as God's bridge of salvation for us. A century ago
fundamentalists similarly feared that modern science would
demolish the underpinnings of biblical faith. Such did not
happen and I suggest that our faith in Jesus Christ does not
finally depend about the ongoing search for more knowledge
about Jesus. We should certainly welcome that search. Jesus
has said: IF YOU CONTINUE IN MY WORD, YOU ARE TRULY MY
DISCIPLES; AND YOU WILL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH WILL
MAKE YOU FREE.
Christian faith always seeks understanding. We want the
truth about Jesus. But our faith depends on our belief in
Jesus, rather than our knowledge about him. And our faith in
Jesus is received from the community of faith and each of us
either experiences Jesus as our Lord and God, or we do not.
Our confirmands are engaged in a process in which some
information, knowledge and perspective about Jesus are being
shared. But the key to confirmation is not knowledge but
faith. And personal faith arises when anyone accepts what
the Church proclaims about Jesus and experiences that
proclaimed Lord of the Church as the One who makes all the
difference in our lives.
Perhaps another way to put this is: The Resurrection of
Jesus has always been just about the most debated fact about
Jesus. The Church has come down declaring that he was
resurrected and that Jesus is alive. The Church came to that
decision, not because of facts as such, but because the
Church has experienced Jesus as the living Lord of the
Church. For individual Christians, like our confirmands, it
does not make that much difference how often the Church
declares Jesus is alive. The issue for everyone is: Is Jesus
alive for you?
Jesus in my experience makes the key difference in my
life. It is through Jesus that I know that God is an
affirming, parental, divine reality that always seeks the
best for Gene Preston. That is the grace that Jesus mediates
to me. That is why Jesus is the Anointed One, the Saving One
for me.
I asked our confirmands this past week to write an answer
to this question "What is the meaning of baptism?" All the
girls agreed that baptism is the forgiveness of their sins.
That is quite true and Jesus is experienced as the Savior by
tens of millions precisely because it is by trusting Jesus
and believing in his promises that they know release from
their old selves. Jesus can give every person a fresh start,
and then a fresh start again and again.
Baptism does wipe clean the bad things in our lives. Just
as it commences many new and good things in our lives.
Baptism is assurance of the forgiveness of your sins,
baptism is further your entrance into new life in Jesus. An
emphasis only upon forgiveness of sins may reduce God's love
for you to a sort of defensive barrier of divine protection
raised up to protect you from evil. But God's love is much
more and the fuller meaning of baptism is that it is your
entrance into a new life in which more and more you will
experience Jesus as alive to you. God takes the offensive
with us through baptism.
Actually, Jesus never talked much about baptism; there's
only Matthew 28:l9 and the instance of his own baptism by
John the Baptist. But Jesus did talk constantly about
opening the way to new life. For every Jesus reference to
baptism there are a hundred of his teachings about the
Kingdom of God. The single greatest thing Jesus has done for
me, and I hope for you, is to reveal God as the heavenly
Father who always seeks the very best for us and who
welcomes me right now into His Kingdom so that I can live as
a Kingdom believer, a Kingdom worker, a Kingdom blessing.
In today's Gospel Jesus shows his knack for personalizing
the meaning of faith: He, in effect, reduces the rather
complex ten commandments of Moses to just two commandments:
love God, love one another. In his first commandment, which
hearkens back to the Shema, or teaching in Deut 6:5, known
to all Jews, Jesus in effect is summarizing the first four
commandments. Those first four call us to honor God as the
only divine one, to honor his name, to honor his creation.
Jesus sums these commandments up in the single phrase: love
God.
Then he goes on to summarize the other six commandments,
all of which talk about our human relationships: love your
neighbors.
The way Jesus' summarizes the Law of Moses into the love
of God and one another is an example of how Jesus does his
saving work by showing God as a force of parent-like
goodwill in all the events of one's life. It is Jesus' gift
of God as revealed in the New Testament which establishes
him in my faith as the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed
One, the Saving One, the Grace of God.
I would never have known this except for the Church. It
is the Church, which has protected, preserved and tried to
live this experience of the loving God. Those folks who say
they can know Jesus Christ apart from the Church are as
naively crazy as a student of politics claiming he can know
the new president of Indonesia without any reference to the
written record about him, without any reliance upon what his
friends say about him.
You young confirmands answered a further question about
baptism correctly that the three parties involved in baptism
are l) the person seeking baptism 2) the Holy Spirit
granting forgiveness of sins and breathing new life into us
and 3) and here you all said "the minister." Correct if you
are using the minister as shorthand for the Church. It is
the Church which is the critical third party in your
baptism. Through baptism you enter the church as full
members.
You have come to experience Jesus as grace through the
Church; you join the Church for the purpose of continuing to
grow in that grace of God experienced in Jesus.
Last Sunday afternoon after church some of us attended
the Don Moen concert at the Coliseum. The moment the artist
appeared on the stage and the words for the first song of
love for Jesus went on the screens, the Coliseum was swept
with excitement. Nearly every young person was instantly on
their feet, singing about on the opening song lines. It was
just like a rock star mounting the stage and giving forth
with an all time pop hit known by heart to his legions of
adoring fans.
The difference, however, is this: the focus of our
celebration was not on Mr. Moen or any of the other
musicians, greatly appreciated though they are. The
excitement, the physical energy, sprang from the deep
experience of Jesus as making all the difference in our
lives. Jesus is the One! Jesus is the mediator of God's
Grace. Jesus is the One who convinces us that God is with us
now.
Who is Jesus Christ? The One through and with whom we can
know the grace of God, that is, that God is always seeking
us, affirming us, supporting us.
Pastor Gene
Preston
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