Who Does He
Think He Is?
Just
who does he think he is? This
Jesus. Who does he think he is telling
me that I have to love my enemy? I
don’t even like my enemy! Who does he think he is telling me that I
have to be concerned about justice for the poor, the so-called “least of
these”? He obviously doesn’t understand modern economic theory! Who does he think he is telling me that I
have to pray and fast? Hey, I like my
burgers too much for that! As they say
down South, “He done stopped preachin’ and gone to meddlin’ right there, he
did.”
Just
who does he think he is? This
Jesus. And why should I listen to him
anyway? Why should I obey him at all?
After all, he’s just another man, right?
He’s just a teacher, a good teacher, but just a teacher, right? Sure, he had some sort of connection with
God, but that was then, thousands of years ago, this is now: what does Jesus
have to do with me and my life today?
*****
As
we listen to the Apostle’s Creed, we hear the answer: “I believe in Jesus
Christ, his only Son, our Lord….” The
German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once famously wrote, “When Christ calls a
man, he bids him come and die.”
According to the Creed, it belongs to Christ to call and to command; it
belongs to Christ to rule and to redeem, for Christ is Lord. “Jesus is Lord,”
is the earliest known creed in the Christian Faith. Today we reaffirm this ancient saying, yet we also recognize its
radical challenge to both the ancient and modern worlds.
Back in the day,
during the first 100 to 200 years after Jesus, there was a group called the
“Ebionites.” The Ebionites were a group of Jewish Christians, possibly the
“Judaizers” whom Paul railed against in Galatians and his other letters. The Ebionites believed in something called
“adoptionism,” which taught that Jesus was a man, just a man, but was “adopted”
by the Father at his baptism when the heavens opened and the voice was heard,
“This is my Son, my beloved, whom I love” (Luke 3:22). The Ebionites rejected the notion that Jesus
was a god because, being Jews and therefore strict monotheists, Jesus couldn’t
be a god, so he must be only human.
Compare this reasoning with the folks of the so-called “Jesus Seminar” who seem scandalized by Jesus’ divinity. These folks go out of their way to try to show that Jesus couldn’t have been divine. And their teaching is quite sneaky. First, they argue that history only can teach what is ordinary and probable, and since stories of the supernatural are extraordinary and improbable, history cannot know one way or another if anything supernatural occurred in the past. In other words, Jesus’ divinity is unknowable by the scientific application of historical tools. Okay, that’s fine. I can accept that. But then they next argue that, since the supernatural is unknowable, ultimately it cannot have happened. But you see their error, I hope: there is a difference between not being able to prove something happened – Jesus’ miracles, his resurrection, his divinity – and saying that therefore, since it can’t be proven, it must not exist. No, since it cannot be proven, we must accept it or reject it on faith.
For both the ancient Ebionites and the modern Jesus Seminar folks, the divinity of Jesus Christ is an embarrassment. It’s almost as if they think: “If I can make Jesus merely a teacher, merely human, then the more difficult aspects of his call can be ignored.” But such is not to be. As I have said, the earliest Christian creed was the simple phrase, “Jesus is Lord.” The early Christians confessed this faith in the face of great opposition and often persecution from the Roman Empire. The core creed of the Empire was “Caesar is Lord.” Roman coins would have Caesar’s image with the phrase divi fili, “Son of God,” imprinted on them. For the Christians to claim that Jesus is God’s Son and that Jesus is Lord with the right to call and to command was a direct insult to the power of Caesar. Many Christians gave their lives for the right to say, “Jesus is Lord.”
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
*****
If Jesus is not God’s only Son, if Jesus is not Lord, his call and his claim upon our lives makes no sense; he has no right to make such claims if it is not true that he is God’s “only Son, our Lord.” But, indeed, as the Creed affirms, Jesus is God’s only Son, our Lord, and so has the right to request of us extraordinary things, to make extravagant claims upon our lives.
Ø Why else would missionaries from Canada go to Uganda, in East Africa, and adopt 10,000 children orphaned by AIDS or war? Who has the right to place such a call into someone’s heart if not Jesus, God’s only Son, our Lord?
Ø Why would a wife whose missionary husband had just been killed by a tribe in South America go to that same tribe and continue her husband’s work? Who has the right to place such a call into someone’s heart if not Jesus, God’s only Son, our Lord?
Ø When I was in high school, this girl who was a blond bombshell and who shall remain nameless had a thing for water polo players. It was well known around the team that she was on the pill for good reason. Why then would when I was 17 and she wanted to date me did I turn her down? It was because I had only just become a Christian, and the Lord spoke to my heart saying, “You are not strong enough for this spiritually. I am your Lord and you must choose whom you will serve.” Now who has the right to whisper such a claim into a 17 year old boy’s heart if not Jesus, God’s only Son, our Lord?
Ø Who else but Jesus has the right to tell a starched shirt, crew cut, hard nose full bird colonel who had spilled his own blood fighting Nazis in Europe to open his heart to his long estranged, gay son who was dying of AIDS?
Ø It was Jesus who spoke to the heart of a mom who had raised her two children all by herself after her dead beat husband had abandoned them all. Jesus spoke to her heart when her ex-husband reentered their lives and wanted to connect with his now adult children. And when the mom raged at the Lord in prayer, saying, “It’s not fair!” the Lord whispered back, “You’re right. It’s not.” And when she raged again, saying, “I don’t like it!” the Lord whispered back, “I don’t blame you.” But when she raged a third time, saying, “I won’t allow it!” the Lord whispered to her heart, “Now we disagree.” Who else has the right to make such an extraordinary, extravagant claim upon someone’s life but Jesus, God’s only Son, our Lord?
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
*****
The Jesus Seminary folk, who are embarrassed to accept Jesus’ divinity, and therefore his lordship over all of life, hold on to something called “the scandal of particularity.” Simply put, the scandal of particularity asks how it is possible that Jesus, a peasant who lived in a distant outpost of the Roman Empire 2000 years ago, could impact all humanity? How is it that the death of this one Jewish peasant executed as a criminal by the legal authority of the Roman state could cause the forgiveness of all sins on the planet? Jesus is too particular! Where is the “Big Idea”? Where is the “Transcendent Truth”?
Actually, those scandalized by the particularity of Jesus have it wrong, all wrong. If one is going to be scandalized, at least get it right. The Christian Faith does not say, as those scandalized suggest, that Jesus’ death affects all people who have ever lived on this planet. Nor does the Christian Faith say, again as those scandalized suggest, that Jesus is the focal point of all human history. No! What the Christian Faith says is that Jesus and his death affects all living things anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe. What the Christian Faith says is that Jesus is the center of all creation, all the universe, visible and invisible, seen and unseen and that without Jesus there is not a single atom in the most distant reaches of space that can exist. Hey, if one is going to be scandalized by the particularity of Jesus, one ought at least be properly scandalized! And this larger vision of the centrality of Jesus is precisely what the Christian Faith teaches.
Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, says this:
Christ 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 (1:15-16).
Did you catch that? All things were created by Jesus. All things were created for Jesus. All things are held together by the power of the name of Jesus!
Then, in his letter to the Philippians, Paul says this about Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be held on to, but emptied himself of his divine prerogatives of power and authority, and made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto 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 (2:6-11).
This is amazing! New Testament scholars who know Greek better than I teach that this is an ancient Christian hymn; they believe this because of the way its rhythm and meter flow differently from the rest of Paul’s prose. An analogy would be if in the middle of my sermon I started to say, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” We would all recognize that I had switched gears and was quoting Amazing Grace. Paul, writing in the late 50’s or early 60’s, or about 25 to 30 years after Jesus, is quoting a hymn that had been circulating around the church for long enough that he was confident the Philippians would know it. What this means is that from the very earliest days of the Christian Faith, within but a few years or perhaps even months of Jesus, the earliest apostles saw Jesus as “The Difference.” They saw Jesus as Lord; not just their Lord, but the Lord, the Lord of all. The Lord who is worthy to call.
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
*****
C. S. Lewis has a well known argument in his book Mere Christianity called “Lord, Liar, Lunatic.” Essentially, what Lewis claims is that Jesus clearly claimed to be the Lord of the universe; he claimed to be God. Now, according to Lewis, either Jesus truly is what he claims to be or he is a liar or a lunatic. If Jesus is not God and Jesus knows that he is not God, then what he said in his life was a lie. If Jesus is not God but Jesus truly believes he is God, then he is a lunatic on the level of one who needs to be in a state hospital. Those are the choices: Lord, Liar or Lunatic.
Well, I think we can stand Lewis’ argument on its head and address a question to ourselves. Either we accept that Jesus is Lord, or we think maybe he was lying about his person. Either we accept that Jesus is Lord, or we think maybe he was a crazy Lune to be pitied were it not for all the fuss he made. Which will it be? What will you choose? Will you open your mind to the scandalous notion that this man, this one Jewish peasant, this criminal executed by the Roman state, this Jesus is Lord and all the universe is centered in his personhood? Will you open your heart to the scary notion that this Jesus who is Lord wants to by your Lord?
When Christ calls a man, or a woman or a youth or a child for that matter, he bids them come and die. But know that it is a joyful duty to die to Christ, for it leads to the only true life.
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