Who is Jesus? (from a sermon given at Randburg Methodist Church just before Easter)
Those of you who know me will know of my passion for Alpha so you won’t be surprised that most of my sermon is based on Nicky Gumble’s book, “Questions of Life” .
We will be looking at Who is Jesus. What did he say about himself. If he didn’t claim to be God, then that is the end of the story, but if he did, that opens another set of questions. If Jesus said he was God, Was he right? If he was wrong, either he knew he was not God and deliberately set about trying to fool people, or he really believed he was God but was mistaken, in other words He was mad.. We will look at evidence so you can decide for yourselves. Some people don’t need evidence. They believe what their parents or Sunday School teachers told them.
But I am a scientist. My father told me “A good scientist takes nothing for granted, but tests everything.” I first put this into practice when I was very young. My parents told me there were such things as germs which you couldn’t see but could make you sick and you had to wash your hands before eating and after stroking the cat. Now who is going to believe in something you can’t see just because your parents say so? I knew it was just a ploy to have children with clean hands to impress their friends. Later on I went to University and studied Microbiology. Now I believe in germs – I can even classify them.
Then there was the whole World is round thing. Anybody can see the world is flat, apart from a couple of hills and valleys of course. It was only when I first flew in an aeroplane that I could see for myself that the world is actually round.
Perhaps you re a bit like me and you want to find out for yourself without believing everything you are told. In this talk I am going to use a number of quotations from the bible. Don’t just take my word for it, look them up yourself.
So, Who is Jesus. Did he really exist? Besides the new testament, there are accounts about him from other historians.. eg the Roman historian, Tacitus, Suctonius and the Jewish historian, Josephus, born in AD37.
He wrote the following:
“Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works – a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him: and the tribe of Christians, so named after him, are not extinct to this day.
Although there is evidence outside the New Testament for the existence of Jesus, most of our information does come from the New Testament. People might say, O but how do we know that what has come down to us s what people wrote so long ago? We do know because of a science called textual criticism. Essentially, the more texts we have, the less doubt there is about the original. F J A Horst, a leading textual critic has said, “In the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests, the text of the new testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone among ancient prose writings”
So, if we accept that Jesus existed, Who is he? Was he just a good man, a great religious teacher, or was he and is he, God?
First of all, let’s look at what Jesus said about Himself.
In the Old Testament, Moses asked God what his name was. God said, “I am who I am. Tell them, “I am” has sent you.” The word, Yaweh, meaning “I am,” is very similar to the word used to translate, the Lord, in the Old Testament. The Jews did not take the name of God on their lips.
What did Jesus say? “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35.) Psychologists recognize that there is a deep hunger in the human heart. Freud said, “People are hungry for love” Jung said, “People are hungry for security”, Adler said, “People are hungry for significance” and Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” In other words, if you want your hunger satisfied, come to me. He also said, “I am the light of the world” and “I am the resurrection and the life” This is not the sort of thing great religious leaders say. Great religious leaders might say, “I will show you the way,” Jesus says, “I am the way”. Great religious leaders might say, “I will tell you the truth,” Jesus says, “I am the Truth”, Great religious teachers might say, “I will teach you how to live the life”, Jesus said, “I am the Life.” So in a culture where people did not use the name Yaweh, or I am, Jesus was I amming all over the show.
He said that to receive him was to receive God and to have seen him was to have seen the Father.
Then there are his indirect claims. He claimed to forgive sin.
In Mark 2 vs 5 he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Some teachers of the law were sitting there and thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? Jesus knew what they were thinking and he said, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, Get up, take your mat and walk’? But that you might know that the son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
Jesus also claimed that one day he would judge the world. Now imagine if your minister stood up in the pulpit one day and said “On the day of judgment you will all appear before me and I will decide your eternal destiny on how you treated me and my friends” I think we would start questioning his sanity and possibly make an appointment with a panel of psychologists at Tara.
Then there are his direct claims: In Mark 14:55-64 we read the account of Jesus standing before the high priest. They were having difficulty convicting Jesus. They had even hired a couple of false witnesses to tell lies so they could get something on him. Unfortunately the witness’s testimony didn’t agree. The high priest was getting very frustrated. Jesus wouldn’t answer questions! He was being accused mostly of blasphemy from the Jewish point of view and of inciting riots from the Roman point of view. The chief priest asked him directly, “Are you the Christ, the son of the blessed one?
What did Jesus say? I AM.
On the other end of the social scale we have the Samaritan woman. She’s been having a conversation with Jesus and it had got onto spiritual things. She talked about the promised Messiah. Jesus said, “I who speak to you am he.”
. Now, just because somebody says they are something, it doesn’t make it so. Lots of people say lots of things and they are not always true. Some of you might remember Paul, who used to hang around the church. He once told me he was an angel from God sent on a secret mission. There are people in insane asylums who claim all sorts of things. Politicians claim many things but that doesn’t make them true. We need to look at the evidence and decide whether Jesus was telling the truth
Let’s look at the evidence. What did other people say about Jesus? What did Peter say about Jesus? Jesus once asked him. He said, “Who do people say I am?” Peter had all sorts of ideas, “some say you are John the Baptist, some say this, some say that.” Then Jesus asked him, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” ((Math 16:16) Peter had been with Jesus. He had had time to examine the evidence. He had seen how he lived.
Then there was the centurion. He had seen how Jesus died. He said, “surely this man was the son of God.”
His teaching: His teaching is widely acknowledged to be the greatest teaching that has ever fallen from human lips. His teaching is the foundation of Western civilization, many laws were originally based on it. Institutions like the Red Cross, Hospitals were based on Jesus teaching. We are making great progress in fields of science and technology, communication and travel and yet in 2000 years no one has improved on the moral teaching of Jesus Christ. Could that teaching really have come from a con man or a mad man?
His works. Jesus said that the miracles he performed were evidence that “the father is in me and I am in the father “(John 10:38)
Jesus was most amazing person to have been around. At a Party, out sailing, at a picnic, hospital visiting.
But mostly it was his love that stood out. Love for those rejected by others, prostitutes, lepers, people who were not in the “In crowd.”
Are these the actions of an evil or deluded man?
His character. Here was someone who was unselfish, humble, but not weak, full of joy but never at another’s expense. Even his enemies could find nothing to accuse him with except that he claimed to be God. The greatest test of character is how you react under pressure. How did Jesus react when he had been tortured, was in pain on the cross? He said “Father, forgive them?” ((Luke 22:34) Was a man with a character like that evil, or unbalanced?
His fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy. Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophesies spoken by different voices over 500 years. Of course some say he could have studied all the prophesies relating to the Messiah and gone around fulfilling them. But some were quite difficult. Eg where he was to be born or about his death and even burial.
His resurrection.
What evidence do we have that Jesus rose.
His absence from the tomb. Many people have come up with a number of different theories about how this happened. Some say Jesus wasn’t really dead.
Well for a man who had undergone a Roman flogging, under which many died, been nailed to a cross for 6 hours, it seems very unlikely that he would have been strong enough to move a stone weighing about 1500 kg. The soldiers were convinced he was dead and they were experts. This was their job. Moreover, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear (John 19:34) and blood and water gushed out. This appears to be the separation of clot and serum which we know today is strong medical evidence for death, but which they wouldn’t have known in those days.
Some say the disciples stole the body. This is psychologically improbable. They were defeated and downcast , depressed and disillusioned. It would have taken more than a seedy plot to transform them into dynamic evangelists. They suffered floggings, torture and death. Nobody dies for a lie.
Some say the authorities stole the body. Well then, all they had to do, when the rumours started that Jesus was alive was to produce the body. They never did.
The other interesting thing is John’s account of what he saw when the women told him the tomb was empty. In fact it wasn’t empty. The grave clothes were there.
If I was going to steal a dead body, I would take it wrapped and all.
His appearances to the disciples.
Jesus appeared to his disciples on 11 different occasions over 6 weeks. Over 500 people saw the risen Jesus. He was not a ghost. He could be touched and ate broiled fish. On one occasion he cooked breakfast for the disciples. While one person could have an hallucination, 500 is a bit much. And hallucinations don’t cook breakfast.
The immediate effect.
Jesus rising from the dead had a great impact on the world. Christianity spread at a tremendous rate.
Christian Experience. Christians all over the world are experiencing a relationship with Jesus Christ. There are many in this room who will testify to his reality. Many of us spoke to Him just half an hour ago.
I said at the beginning I want you to think for yourself, make decisions for yourself. Examine the evidence for yourself. Jesus said he was God. Was he lying? Was he a mad man… or was he telling the truth.? One thing is for sure. He was not a good man or a great human teacher.
C.S. Lewis said, “A man who was just a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher, he’d either be a lunatic – on a level with a man who says he’s a poached egg – or else he’d be the devil of hell. You must make your choice…”
If you have a bit of scientist in you, I encourage you to do some experiments. You could, for instance pray. Ask Jesus to show you if he is alive. Another approach you could take is to assume he is God, and act as if that was true and see whether refuting evidence comes along. If you prefer the intellectual approach, do some research, read through the gospels critically as history and try to get a picture of Jesus The Gospel of John is a good place to start.
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