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MEETING JESUS AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME
The most distinguishing characteristic which separates Christianity from all other religions lies in the person of its founder. Hinduism is loyalty to an idea; Confucianism is loyalty to a tradition. Shintoism is loyalty to a country; and Islam is loyalty to a code. Christianity is loyalty to a person. You may conceive of Christianity without an organization; you may conceive of it without a liturgy; you may conceive of it without a creed, or theological system. But you cannot conceive of Christianity without the person of Christ.
When Jesus knew that the end of His earthly life was near, and He retreated to the districts of Caesarea Philippi, to ask His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" He asked the most important question of his life. The answer to that question determined the future of the faith. And how we respond to the question may be the most important answer of our lives.
The poignant cry of the Greeks is still our need, "Sir, we would see Jesus." Toward that end I hope to speak to your hearts this morning.
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We know very little about the details of His life. What Thomas Carlyle wrote is true of Him. "Great people have short biographies." He left no record. He wrote no book. He kept no diary. He left no order for anything to be written. All that we know about Him is crowded in a few pages at the opening of the N.T. You can read it through in a few hours. Try it sometime.
What we have are four gospels which are four testimonies, four interpretations, four reflections by four men upon the Son of God. They do not give us a photograph of Jesus, but a portrait of Him. Matthew presents him as a teacher to Israel, Mark as a conqueror, Luke as a physician, and John as the light of the world. That is all we know of Him. Yet more books have been written about Him; more changes have come to pass through Him, more poems and plays have been produced concerning Him, and more architecture has been fashioned for Him, than that of any other human being who ever lived.
Such events as we have of his life are quickly told. The story opens with the birth of a babe in an obscure setting in a Barnstable on a Judean hillside, "while shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night." He grew up in a sheltered mountain village among the commonplace, the unwanted, and the forgotten. He had four brothers and two sisters. He attended a synagogue school. He was confirmed at the age of twelve. He grew up in a normal home, sharing normal duties. He knew how to fill lamps and trim wicks. He knew what house cleaning involved. He knew how to build a fire. He could prepare a fish-fry. He learned the lesson of frugality. Years later when He fed the five thousand He said, "Gather up the broken fragments that nothing be lost." He learned the trade of a carpenter. He could tend sheep.
When Joseph died, Jesus, being the eldest, became the responsible head of the family. All the while a fire burned within Him. He was harnessed to an immediate task; yet He lived with a poignant awareness of a divine mission. Having filled His responsibility, He walked out into the world. Then came His baptism, an historic fact told in poetic language to express an inner experience- His acceptance of the divine call and God's approval. There followed the temptations, an historic fact told in poetic language to express an inner experience- what that mission was and how it was to be accomplished. So, at the age of thirty, He walked into Galilee preaching that through Him the kingdom of God was at hand, the rule of God in the heart of the individual and the reign of God in society.
But what concerns us this morning is not what He said or what He did but who He was. How can you account for the impact of His life upon the world? Why is it that He has haunted history with ever increasing intensity for twenty centuries? I would like to submit that there are four qualities about Him which have captured the imagination and the conscience of humankind
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HUMANKIND HAS BEEN DRAWN TO JESUS FOR HIS UNIQUENESS. There was a uniqueness to His character. He was never petulant, never impatient, and never jealous. He never entertained suspicion. He was never in a hurry and never uncertain. He never vacillated. He never faltered. He never compromised. He never accommodated Himself or His message. He was never proud, never overbearing, and never haughty. All through history philosophers and thinkers have searched for the truth and speculated about it. Jesus never did. He possessed the truth, He was the truth. He lived with a God consciousness never before known on this earth. He was completely God-possessed. He never debated or argued the existence of God with anybody, anywhere, at anytime. The fact of God was the foundation of His life and teaching. God was to Him not a philosophical argument but a presence and an experience. There were two things Jesus did not know how to do. He did not know how to hate and He did not know how to doubt. He was unlike anyone before or since.
HUMANKIND HAS BEEN DRAWN TO HIM FOR HIS SINLESSNESS. He lived a blameless life. He was tempted in all things, as are we, yet without sin. He know nothing of guilt and remorse, which are so poignantly and firmly real and haunt so many in our day. Peter said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." The thief on the other cross said, "We are suffering the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate, said to her husband, "Have nothing to do with this just man." Judas cried out in anguish, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood."
Beyond His uniqueness and His sinlessness, HUMANKIND HAS BEEN DRAWN TO HIM FOR HIS GIGANTIC CLAIMS. He claimed to be a perfect leader. He claimed to set a perfect example. He claimed to heal the sick. He claimed to raise the dead. He claimed to represent the living God. He claimed to fulfill Old Testament prophecy. He claimed to rise again from the dead.
His self-assertiveness has no parallel in history. He stood before His generation saying, "I am the light of the world… I am the door… I am the Bread of Life… I am the Good Shepherd… I am the resurrection and the life… I am the Lord of the Sabbath… I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life… Before Abraham was, I Am."
And what is so striking and significant is that history has recognized the truth of His claims. Nobody denies them. He is entitled to them. When a Napoleon or a Hitler makes such claims, when a Lenin or a Castro makes such claims, the world laughs. Nobody laughs at Jesus. His claims are relevant and the world needs to recover them. He conceived a plan of which no one had ever dreamed: a new moral creation with a new moral order covering all lands and all languages and all ages.
And finally, beyond His uniqueness and sinlessness, beyond His gigantic claims, HUMANKIND HAS BEEN DRAWN TO HIM BECAUSE OF HIS COMPASSION. The most memorable quality which the disciples carried with them about Him was His deep concern. He did not show the world a clenched fist but an outstretched arm. He did not build walls but bridges. He did not separate people by the divisions of ecclesiastical, religious, social, economic, or political barriers. The sorrows of His generation touched deeply His soul. At midnight it was a Hebrew scholar. At daybreak it was a foundering ship. At noonday it was a loose-living girl by a well. In the afternoon it was a company of the hungry unemployed. Across the threshold of His life there fell the limp and the lame, the halt and the blind, and He healed them, every one. He was the most compassionate person who ever lived.
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What once was written of Him is still true: All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever sailed, all the parliaments that have ever legislated, all the rulers who have ever ruled, and all the prophets who have ever preached, have not affected or changed or challenged the life of humankind as this solitary figure.
Our civilization is not done with Him. But our civilization is done with Him.