What would Jesus say or do? .......... Parables 668

May 9, 2000

Madeline O’Hare, Shirley McLean and Jesus Christ are sipping lattes at Starbucks. To open the conversation, Ms. O’Hare (the most forward of the three), stoutly proclaims, “There is no God.”

Ms. McLean cringes. How can she say that? It simply ruins everyone’s self-esteem. In rebuttal, she sternly declares, “No, that is not right. You are God. I am God. We are all God.”

At that, Jesus leans back in His chair, smiles and then . . . what do you think He would say or do?

One option might be a storm cloud that fills the coffee house with thunder and lightning, stunning these two with His power. The New Testament describes a time He was in a boat with His disciples. He was having a nap while they rowed across the Sea of Galilee. As it was prone to do, the weather suddenly changed. Some of the disciples were fishermen, used to quirky storms but this was the mother of all storms. They were terrified and shook Jesus awake with, “Don’t you care that we perish?” At that, He rebuked their “little faith” and commanded the rain and wind to cease. It did. Certainly if He can stop a storm with a word, He can also start one.

Another option might be a display of His glory. He did that on a mountain with Peter, James and John as witnesses. They were struck dumb by what they saw (only Peter, who had perpetual foot-in-mouth disease, offered a few comments). All three fell to the ground in terror.

Or Jesus might respond with a sermon. He often preached from mountainsides and fishing boats, so a coffee shop is not out of bounds for a pulpit. We could guess a topic, perhaps the demands of His Law that asks for our perfect obedience. He might explain how no human would invent the Law of God because we have no reason to hold up a standard we cannot reach. Surely Jesus would include God’s grace and mercy . . . although “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin . . . when we were still sinners, He died for us.” With that, He would explain how God loves sinners but hates sin and demands it be punished. In love, He send His Son to earth to pay our penalty for sin. Those who believe in Him are spared but those who reject His offer of salvation must themselves pick up the tab for sin.

Then again, Jesus might not preach or do a miracle. He might not reveal Himself, at least not to these people. One is an atheist who denies there is a God. For her, there is no value to faith nor is there need to consider her soul or spirit. She also denies spiritual realities such as miracles. Anything Jesus might do she would attribute to human skill and an FX crew.

The other one believes in pantheism, a belief once held by primitive people but now adopted by the sophisticated westerner. Pantheists believe that “God is all and all is God.” Each level of existence is simply a different level of God, whether it be mind, mosquito, or mud. For her, God is energy not a person. Even though she would agree that Jesus has the energy of God, even agree that He is God, it would not be because He is God but because all of us are. She would attribute whatever Jesus might do or say to the same forces that she herself lives by, but not to the power of a real and holy God. Pantheists prefer a god they can see, touch, understand, control, and that does not require admission of sin. By making “all” into god, they can worship anything they want. They may not stoop to mud and mosquitoes, but only because their favorite “god” is themselves.

Jesus might smile, finish His latte and walk away. After all, He has already spoken to these issues. Psalm 14:1 begins, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” and goes on to explain that no one seeks God because sin hardens our hearts to the truth of God.

The Bible points out that we know about the Creator in our hearts but if we persist in denying our conscience, we crowd Him out. Then, because we are spiritual beings, we fill the void with lesser gods and the true God becomes an unknown.

Who is Jesus? ................ Parables 313

April 14, 1992

Graffiti, found on a university wall says:

Jesus said unto them: “Who do you say that I am?”
And they replied, “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal relationships.”
And Jesus said: “What?”

This bit of wit is not intended to imply Jesus is unable to understand verbal gobbledegook. The point is, many “educated” people in their efforts to be profound often miss the simplicity of who He is.

Jesus really did ask this important question to His disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” Today’s average man-in-the-street responds by saying He was only a man, maybe a great teacher or prophet, but still only a man. With that, they are forced to conclude that the Bible is not historically reliable (even though it is the most well-documented book in all history) because it says He is far more than a mere man.

Others say Jesus was a kook, some sort of religious nut. However, if that is true, we base our calendar, major holidays, and a large portion of our legal and ethical system on the life and sayings of a religious nut?

Others say Jesus was a liar, a grand fraud who claimed to be God in the flesh. According to them, He was simply not telling the truth. But if that is true, many of His followers have given their lives for a lie rather than admit they had been fooled.

I can’t buy that. Anyone who is convinced they saw a man alive after He had been crucified and put in a tomb has far more reason to die for their belief than a person clinging to some lies in a “hope-so” kind of way. After all, if Jesus offers eternal life to all those who trust Him, and if He rose from the dead Himself, why not die for that belief? Death merely ushers you into eternal life! Besides, the disciples lived with Him for over three years. Not one of them ever called Him a liar.

So who is Jesus? Only a man? Does a mere man walk on water, calm storms with a word, heal the sick, raise the dead, and start a movement that lasts 2000 plus years in spite of organized efforts to stop it? I cannot think of anyone else that has done what Jesus has done.

Was He a kook? A fool? Do fools live like He did? They may get themselves in trouble for their claims (Jesus did), but they do not gain the respect of anyone who honestly examines their life. Jesus lived to serve others, loved the unlovely, called hypocrites to account, and never broke one Old Testament law. Fools do not fit His description.

Liars don’t live like He lived either, even clever liars. Besides, there is no motive for falsehood. He gained absolutely nothing positive or personally beneficial by saying what He did about Himself. Instead, it made the religious leaders of His day so angry that they killed Him.

Jesus Himself said that those who saw Him saw the Father. John wrote that He was the “Word who existed in the beginning with God” and in fact “was God” (John 1:1). The writer of Hebrews said, “He is ...the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being...” Paul said, “He was ...in very nature God, (yet) did not consider equality with God something to be grasped... (Philippians 2:6). Instead, He became one of us.

The Bible says Jesus was born as a baby, grew up in a home with human parents, learned how to obey them as His Heavenly Father commanded, and when the time was right, He died for us. In other words, God pulled on humanity so He might deliver us from our sins by paying the penalty for them Himself... something no mere man, no fool, no liar would or could ever do.

Only God could act as our substitute or proxy because only God had no payment of His own to make. Furthermore, only God could rise from the dead and offer us forgiveness and eternal life. He may have done these things inside the skin of a man, a very real and fully human man, yet He could be none other than who He claimed to be. All other possibilities are easily eliminated.

God, being God, is not limited to what we can understand. We may not be able to grasp the mechanics of how God could become a man, but understanding the incarnation is not our responsibility — believing it is.

Jesus still asks, “Who do YOU say that I am?”