Sunday 08/24/14 Freeville/Homer Ave
UMC’s
Sermon Title: “Who do you say Jesus is?”
Old Testament Scripture Lesson: Psalm 124
New Testament Scripture Lesson: Romans 12:1-8
Gospel Lesson: Mathew 16:13-20
My
brothers and sisters, today is the Eleventh Sunday after the Feast of
Pentecost. Pentecost, that day so long ago that the Holy Spirit moved like a
mighty wind, and the Christian Church was officially born.
On this day however, we visit a story
from Matthew’s gospel that many of us have probably heard before. This story is
the one where Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man
is?” Or to put it even more clearly, Jesus asks his disciples who do the people
you talk to say I am? What do they say about me? This is what Jesus wants to
know.
The quest, the desire, the need to
know who Jesus Christ was and is truly and fully, is the discussion and the
study that has been going on for nearly 2,000 thousand years. You see, since
Jesus Christ walked on the earth almost 2,000 years ago, people have been
saying since that time, who was and is this Jesus of Nazareth? Was he just a
man only? Was he just a prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah? Was he mentally
insane? Was he a con-artist? Was he the greatest prophet of them all? Was he
the incarnation of God, meaning God in the flesh? Was he on this earth, both fully
God and fully human?
These questions were not only raised
by Jesus Christ himself in today’s gospel reading, but they were raised as I
said, from the time Jesus walked the earth, up to today.
So you see, some people believe this
about Jesus, while some people believe that about Jesus, but what is
historically undeniable however, is that a man named Jesus of Nazareth walked
the earth. You can pick up any secular New York State Global Studies book that
includes a section on world religions, and you will find that it discusses
Jesus of Nazareth in the section on Christianity. You can talk with history
professors who are believers or atheists, and most of them will likely admit
that someone walked this earth named Jesus of Nazareth.
So very few, if any scholars, whether
they be people of faith or of no faith, will deny that Jesus of Nazareth existed.
We know then, that there was indeed a Jesus of Nazareth, and that he walked the
earth. The question again though, is who was and is Jesus of Nazareth?
Since there has been so much
fascination for nearly two-thousand years now over who Jesus Christ was and is,
there is literally a category of study about this, called “Christology.”
Christology is the study of Christ. Our belief of who Jesus was and is, is our own
personal “Christology.” As Christians, I would argue that our “Christology” is
an important thing, so can we develop our own understandings of who Jesus was
and is?
Well for starters, all throughout the
gospels, Jesus Christ performed all manner of miracles. He healed the sick, he
fed the 5,000 thousand, he raised the dead, he had control over the storm and of
nature itself, he walked on water, and etc., and etc. If you believe that Jesus
Christ did truly in fact literally do all of these miracles and amazing things,
it would seem hard then to identify Jesus as just a mere man. I mean after all,
what mere human being can do all of the things that Jesus Christ did in the
gospels? Not to mention the resurrection. If Jesus Christ did truly and fully
come back to life, mind, body, and soul, and if the empty tomb is still there
in Jerusalem even today, which it is, then how could He have been just a man?
I have met some impressive men in my
life, but none that can do all that Jesus did. It would seem then, that the
only way to make Jesus human only in our minds, or to make Jesus only a high
prophet only in our minds, is to deny the literal view of some or all of the
claims that the gospel writers made about Jesus. By this I mean, if you believe
that Jesus did not perform all of the miracles he did, if you believe that
Jesus did not raise, mind, body, and soul from the dead, then it is quite easy
for you to have a “Christology” of Jesus just being a man only.
I also think that for most of us at
this point, we can quickly sift through the argument of Jesus being mentally
insane or a con-artist, as it would seem that somewhere in the suffering of his
crucifixion that something would have shown up to prove that he was bluffing or
was indeed mentally ill. Yet we have no record of any of the sort happening.
So, if you chose to believe, as some
of my friends’ do, that Jesus was just a man only, or that he was divine, but
not equal with God, meaning you don’t believe in the Holy Trinity in the
traditional sense, then you need to have a view of scripture and a theology
that can defend your beliefs. Further, you have to view scripture and theology
differently than the traditional way it is has been viewed for centuries. Some
people then, view Jesus differently than others.
So once again, “Christology,” the
study of Jesus. “Who do you say Jesus is?”
With all of this said, I will explain
to you, who I say Jesus is. I will explain to you who our church and most
churches in the world say Jesus is.
To help this, I want to first read
from the beginning of John’s gospel. In the beginning of John’s gospel it says
in 1:1-4:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into
being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come
into being in him was life, and the life was the
light of all people.”
So John
says in his gospel, that before time itself was God, and the Word. The Word of
God is the full truth of God, and the Word of God is what speaks life into
nothingness. So if the Word always existed, and if “He” meaning Jesus was with
God in the beginning of time itself, then was Jesus not God in the flesh on
earth?
The
traditional view of Jesus Christ, is that he was fully God and fully human. That
Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. John’s gospel goes on to say in John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and
we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of
grace and truth." So in this scripture, John is saying in his gospel, that
Jesus was the truth of God, and was the grace of God, that He took on flesh and
dwelt among us. To me, this verse is very clearly saying that Jesus Christ was
God on earth, not a prophet, not just a man, but the Messiah, the living God in
the flesh.
In John 5:18 it says: “For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to
kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling
God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.” So Jesus was
being accused of saying he was God on earth.
In John
8:58 it says: “Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was,
I am.” If you remember in the book of Genesis, the first person that God
spoke to was Abraham. God also appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and when
Moses asked God his name in the burning bush, God simply said, “I am.” In John
8:58, Jesus said “before Abraham was, I am.”
In John
10:30-31 it says, “The Father and I are one. The
Jews took up stones again to stone him.” Stones were taken up against
Jesus, because they heard him saying that he was God on earth, that he and the
Father were one in the same.
Let me give you more
scripture from the Apostle Paul’s Epistle or letter to the Colossians. Paul
wrote in Colossians 2:9-10: “For in him the
whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you
have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.”
In this scripture the Apostle Paul is making the claim that Jesus is fully God
or deity, and fully human.
So once
again, in the world we live in, many people now, and many people all the way
back to the time that Jesus walked this earth had a view of who Jesus is. “Christology,”
the study of who Jesus is. It is an ongoing conversation and study that has
been going on for almost 2,000 years.
This
morning then, Jesus asks his disciples, as he asks us here, “Who do you people
say that the Son of Man is?”
In our
Psalm reading from Psalm 124 from this morning, the Psalmists talks about the
Lord who loves us, who is on our side, and who protects us. It even says in 124:8,
“Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.”
In the
reading this morning from the Apostle Paul’s Epistle or letter to the church in
Rome, or the Romans, he encourages the church to be transformed, to live sacrificially
for others, and to find the part of the body of Christ where you fit. Find your
place in this church, this life, and in God’s will. Given this, understanding
who Jesus is, and your relationship to Jesus is an important thing. “Who do you
say Jesus is?”
When we look
more closely at the gospel reading for this morning it says, “Jesus came into
the district of Caesarea Philippi.” The gospel then says, “he asked his
disciples, “who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The responses were that
some say that he was “John the Baptist,” that he was “Elijah,” that he was “Jeremiah,”
or one of the other prophets. Yet Simon Peter said to Jesus, “You are the
Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus then said to Simon Peter, “Blessed
are you, Simon son of Jonah!” Now do you think that Jesus would have responded
so positively to Simon Peter if he gave the wrong answer to him? Probably not.
Jesus
then goes on to say that he will build his church on the rock of God and on His
truth. Jesus then tells the disciples not to tell anyone he is the Messiah, as
it was not yet his time to be crucified.
I would like to close this message
this morning with a story called “The Rich King,” by Soren Kierkegaard.” Here
is how it goes:
“Once upon a time there was a very
rich but unhappy king, unhappy because he was all alone in an empty palace. How
he longed for a wife with whom he could share his life.”
“Then one day the king saw the most
beautiful woman he had ever seen, riding through the streets. Enquiries
revealed she was a peasant girl, but the king’s heart was captivated. He would
make sure that each day he rode past her house in the hope of catching a
glimpse of his love.”
“But the king had a problem. How
would he win her love? He could draw up a royal decree commanding her to become
his queen. But then he could never be sure he had won her love, for she would
be required to obey a royal decree.”
“Perhaps he could call on her and try
to win her over, appear in all his regal glory and sweep her off her feet. But
no, then he could never be sure whether she had married him only for his power
and riches.”
“Finally he came upon the perfect
plan. He would come to her as a peasant. That was the only way to truly win her
love. So he abandoned his palace and his riches and his comfort and put on the
clothes of a peasant. He went and lived among the peasants. He worked with
them, shared their sufferings, danced at their feasts, until finally he won the
heart of the woman who had captured his.”
“So it is with God. Christ became one
of us, lived among us, worked among us, suffered with us, and danced with us.
All in order to win our hearts.”
The question then brothers and
sisters, is “Who do we say Jesus is?” You know what I say, you know what the
vast majority of Christians say, but “Who do you say Jesus is?” Amen.
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