Who is the Real Jesus?

American Idols
He’s very popular. One of the most popular figures in human history. There’s not much debate that Jesus Christ is the most widely documented person who lived in the ancient world. Every major world religion acknowledges His influence and teaching.

“I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.” H.G. Wells

Despite his almost universal appeal and acclaim, Jesus was sentenced to death by the religious leaders of his faith tradition and then executed by the powerful empire that occupied his country. Sometimes people are more highly esteemed after their death. In America, we prefer our celebrities to be alive. Entertainers, elite athletes and the rich and famous are members of our pantheon. We even have a TV program called ‘American Idol’ where we give unknown people the opportunity to become stars. That way we’ll have more celebrities to lavish our affection upon.

Superstar
We have a special category for the celebrities with the greatest success and widest appeal. We call them Superstars. When the rock opera ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ premiered in 1970, the Jesus story was re-introduced into popular culture. This musical was later made into a feature film and tended to emphasize the humanity of Jesus. What’s interesting is that Jesus would likely not have authorized this depiction of his life. He was never really interested in title or position.

Jesus did not suffer from an identity crisis. He knew who he was. He knew where he came from. And throughout his life, he clearly demonstrated why he came to earth. The New Testament guy, Paul, wrote, “Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.” God prefers to be represented on earth by someone with a body. That started with Adam and Eve and continues today.

The Gospel of Mark records Jesus saying, “I came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many.”  This is not the typical sound bite you’ll hear on ‘Entertainment Tonight.’

Matchless Artist
Jesus once asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  Here’s how some very famous and influential people have answered that question. These individuals who helped to shape our world freely express their admiration and respect for this remarkable man.

“I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but what foundation did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.” – Napoleon

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.” – Mikhail Gorbachev

“He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh. That is to say, this matchless artist… made neither statues nor pictures nor books; he loudly proclaimed that he made… living men, immortals.”  – Vincent van Gogh

“I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful. No man can read the gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” – Einstein

Life of the Party
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Wow! This phrase is loaded with meaning. Is it possible that one person can confidently make this claim? When someone says something like this it cannot be ignored. Either the claim is true or the person is definitely cray cray.

Let’s look at one aspect of the claim—life. Life can be experienced at a number of levels. Jesus was invited to many social gatherings and according to numerous gospel accounts he was typically the life of the party. Let’s go deeper. Jesus messed up ever funeral he ever attended including his own. When he was physically resurrected from the dead hundreds of his followers personally encountered him. It seems that being raised from the dead significantly increased his credibility as a subject matter expert on life, death and beyond. Let’s take a brief look at what ‘beyond’ means.

By the time Jesus arrived in Bethany his friend Lazarus had been dead four days. This story is recorded in John’s gospel. Here’s how it went down.

Martha said to Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus: “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha: “Yes, when everyone else rises, on resurrection day.”
Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish.”

Shortly after this conversation he backed up his claim. He asked that the stone get rolled away and then he called out to Lazarus. Guess what?  Lazarus came walking out of the tomb. This funeral had just morphed into a party.

Cosmic Checklist
When you go around raising the dead it tends to increase your brand awareness. But that was not much of a concern for Jesus. His mission to earth depended on getting results, not building his reputation. The result he intended to achieve was very clear: restore all creation to its state of perfection as God created it.

Jesus systematically checked items off his list:

• Demonstrate God’s unconditional love by healing, forgiving and setting people free. Check!
• Restore mankind’s broken relationship with the Father by dying on the cross. Check!
• Destroy the works of the devil by living a sinless life and dying as an innocent man. Check!
• Destroy death and totally reverse the effects of The Fall by rising from the grave. Check!
• Reconcile all of creation back to God through a sacrificial death and resurrection. Check!
• Connect people with a ‘forever’ life source through a relationship with the Father. Check!
• Supply followers with an unlimited power source by sending the Holy Spirit. Check!

No question about it, Jesus has always been results-oriented. His final words spoken from the cross summed it up: “It is finished.”  But that’s not the whole story. To understand the whole story we need to rewind a few million years.

Logos
Most stories have a beginning, middle and end, but not the Jesus story. One writer expressed it this way: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Sometimes our language is inadequate to contain the stuff that’s really amazing. Jesus is…the same. Period.

The gospel of John says, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.”

In the original Greek, ‘Word’ is logos. This is where we get the English word logic.

“Logic, intelligence, design. The blueprint of creation. When we speak of these concepts, what we are describing is the way the world is arranged… The Bible keeps insisting that Jesus is how God put things together. The writer Paul said that Jesus is how God holds all things together. The Bible points us to a Jesus who is in some mysterious way behind it all.

Jesus is the arrangement. Jesus is the design. Jesus is the intelligence. For a Christian, Jesus’ teachings aren’t to be followed because they are a nice way to live a moral life. They are to be followed because they are the best possible insight into how the world really works. They teach us how things are.” – Rob Bell from ‘Velvet Elvis’

Can You Handle the Truth?
The ‘Son of God’ is one of the primary ways Jesus has been identified. The religious leaders of his day could not seem to wrap their minds around this concept. That God, clothed in a human body, would encounter them and rock their world. They did not expect the Messiah to look and act and love and forgive the way Jesus did. In the end, they rejected him and did not see ‘The Truth’ that stood before them as a young Rabbi from Nazareth. In the movie “A Few Good Men’ Colonel Nathan Jessup famously said, “You can’t handle the truth!” Clearly, these guys could not even begin to handle it. They got really mad when Jesus healed a man on their Sabbath and then insisted he (Jesus of Nazareth) was God’s Son.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” He continued by explaining that the Father has life within himself and he gave this same life-giving power to his Son. Later in the same discussion he diagnosed their problem. Some people today have the same problem when they fail to realize that God is bigger than his Book. “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.”

King of Rock n’ Roll
It’s funny how we can maintain a kind of intellectual, theoretical approach to God and religion as long as we don’t get personal. But Jesus is very passionate and very personal. Most of us have read books, listened to messages or engaged in discussions where people seem to focus on how much we need to love God. That’s very nice, but it’s not the whole story. The reality is that God always makes the first move in this relationship. Jesus is the best evidence in the universe of how much the Father loves you and me. A long time ago, I got ‘personal’ with Jesus and made a connection with the source of life. Best decision. Ever.

Most folks would agree that Jesus has the undisputed title: ‘King of Kings.’ There’s another guy who has laid claim to the title: ‘King of Rock n’ Roll.’ Now I’m not equating the two roles, but after all who do you think gave Elvis Presley his gift for music? One of my favorite Elvis songs expresses how much God loves you and me. Imagine that Jesus is singing this song directly to you.

“Like a river flows, surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be

Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can’t help falling in love with you”

Maybe this sounds too good to be true. But it is true. Who is the real Jesus? You need to answer that question.

Copyright 2014 John H Briggs