WHO DO YOU SAY HE IS?

A sermon by George R. Pasley

Proverbs 1:20-33; Mark 8:27-38

Suppose you met someone, just briefly, and somehow, in just a few moments, they learned you were a Christian.

Imagine that somehow, in that same few moments, you learned they had never been to church- or had been so few times, such along time ago, that they soaked nothing up. Imagine your shock in realizing that they knew next to nothing about Jesus- only what they see on television and in the movies.

Imagine they ask you, “Who is Jesus, and why should I care?”

Who would you say he is?

That’s essentially the proposition that Jesus put to his disciples, and we might give a similar answer. In fact, when I put the question to one of our presbytery’s candidates for ministry, they answered, “Jesus is my Lord and Savior.”

But there’s a problem with Peter’s answer- the Christ- and there’s a problem with that candidate’s answer- Lord and Savior.

The problem is, they’re jargon. If you’re an outsider or a newcomer, you don’t know what those words mean. Even if you’re a long time church member, you may have heard those words so often that you’ve forgotten the claim they make on those who use them to describe Jesus.

So let’s explore, and let’s begin with the question, “Who do our creeds say he is?”

“I believe in… Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

That helps, but only a little. It uses one of those words I described as jargon- Lord. Even so, it does tell us something about who we believe Jesus is- the son of God- and it tells us some things that Jesus did:

He suffered, was crucified, and was buried.

He rose from the dead.

He ascended into heaven.

He will judge the quick- that means, the living- and the dead.

The remarkable things is, that is essentially the same way that Jesus described his mission after he had quizzed his disciples on their way to Caesarea Philippi.

“He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this.”

So if WE want to know who Jesus is, and why it should matter to us, we need to figure out that lesson.

A few months ago, in the poetry class I teach at the jail, I read a poem written by the Alaska mystery writer John Straley.

The poem was inspired by a conversation John heard in an interview room at a courthouse somewhere in Southeast Alaska. The defendant had been late to court because his car wouldn’t start and his neighbor refused to give him a ride. You can guess the consequences of being late for court- he went to jail.

The essence of the poem was this: being rich IS different from being poor. In fact, one of the lines offered this as evidence: “Their cars start, for one thing.”

Another line in the poem offered this conclusion about the rich: “They suffer more exquisitely.”

Being rich IS different from being poor, but our creed says something about Jesus in between the lines. Son of God, born of a virgin, he didn’t HAVE to suffer as we do. He was rich, divine, of noble heritage and we are sinful humans.

It doesn’t stop there: nonetheless Jesus suffered, and was crucified, dead and buried because he became one of us. There was nothing exquisite about his suffering.

The creed goes on to say he rose from the dead, and Jesus foretold the same thing but that didn’t stop Peter from rebuking him. So let me defend Peter.

The world has changed since Peter made that rebuke, and the suffering that Jesus experienced was a crucial part of the change. Here’s why:

In Roman culture, strength and nobility were everything.

If you were strong, you were victorious. If you weren’t victorious, you weren’t strong enough. Only in rare instances was a vanquished foe recognized for valor, because victory was paramount.

But it went further than that: crucifixion was scandal, it was ridicule, and it was proof positive of complete lack of strength and power and therefore of nobility.

In Roman culture, there was little chance of redemption from defeat and no chance at all from crucifixion, because the taint of crucifixion clung to the followers of the defeated.

In the early Christian era, Christians were mocked and ridiculed for following a crucified man, and they were mocked and ridiculed for being generous to- and being taken advantage of by- the poor.

As for Jewish culture, the emphasis was on avoiding the taint of sin- and suffering and death were tainted through and through with sin.

So Peter rebuked him. “If you want to be LORD (which means, if you want to be top dog on the hill) you need to take advantage of opportunity afforded you by popularity. You need to go with your strengths. You need to win.”

Those of you with children and grandchildren in sports will understand. Their coaches might tell them winning isn’t everything, but they will still encourage them to put their heart and soul and strength into winning.

But Jesus suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, so that says something about who we believe he is: he is God who stepped down from the throne, and walked with us. He was rich, but his suffering was the same as ours. Even more, HIS SUFFERING was EMBRACING of our condition.

He will come to judge the quick and the dead, but he will do it from the vantage point of someone who has walked a lifetime in our shoes and who has felt the blisters and bruises of that walk.

Let me explain all of this by means of a true story, told by a Jewish psychiatrist who was imprisoned in the Nazi death camps during World War Two.

The psychiatrist’s name was Viktor Frankl.

Frankl first described the Capos- persons selected from among the prisoners whose job was to help the guards force cooperation from the prisoners. In return, they were given special favors. By looking out for themselves, they were lifted out from some of the suffering of their fellow prisoners, and Frankl said they were selected because for their bullying natures.

Then there were the ordinary prisoners, and Frankl said each one had his friends. Among friends there was encouragement. Among friends there was the sharing of favors, however tiny those favors were in the death camps.

But friendship could not be shared indefinitely because there was so very little to share. To some degree, everyone had to look out for themselves and not much further because death surrounded them.

So, for instance, if your job one day was to serve the soup, you would dip the ladle all the way to the bottom of the pot when your friends came through the line, so as to put some peas into the soup when you dished it into their little cup. Everyone else got only broth.

But Frankl says there was one prisoner who was different in that respect. Whenever it was his turn to work the serving line he kept his eyes lowered. He never looked into the faces of those before him. He treated each one the same. He kept the pot stirred. He WOULD NOT SINGLE OUT HIS FRIENDS FOR SPECIAL TREATMENT, so each one who came through the line got a tiny few peas in their soup. Each one had a chance at the piece of potato.

Then there were others who suffered just as much as everyone else, yet they took time to walk among the sick and dying, touching each one and offering a prayer or an encouraging word. Their own suffering was no less intense, but they chose to give it meaning. Frankl was Jewish, but he borrowed a word from the Christian vocabulary to describe what was happening: “The way in which a man…takes up his cross gives him ample opportunity- even in the most difficult circumstances- to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish.” (Viktor E. Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning)

So Jesus walks with us, in our condition, whatever it is.

His walk does not say, “This is the way it is, accept it.”

His walk says, “I see the way things are for you, and I am with you.”

Because his walk says that, our walk has meaning- actually, layers of meaning.

But the bottom layer of meaning is this: we are seen by God,

And the top layer of meaning is this: we may walk with God.

Of course, walking with Jesus is hard because we see that he walks a different way than most human beings.

There are times we do not want to even think about walking that way, for its pleasures are often postponed and we prefer not to wait so long.

There are times when it is too much trouble- or too painful- to think about the needs of others.

There are times when we do not want to walk that way because we have to do without certain things, and we can hardly stand the thought.

There are times when we cannot walk that way, because we are just too weak.

Friday night I took a Tai Chi class. It seems not to be too physically demanding, but its appearance is deceptive. There are a lot of things to think about, all at once, and it is very hard to make just the right move and hold just the right position. But my instructor, Eli, is real good. He knows every move, he understands every position, and he knows my weakness. From time to time during the lesson, he would grab my hand, or my arm, or my elbow, or my leg, and move it to the right place.

Jesus does the same for us, and in so doing helps us to be faithful. But if we say, “No, let me go,” it limits the power of his faithfulness towards us. It says, “You walk your way, I’ll walk mine.”

We CAN walk our own way, and in so doing we may gain the world.

But Jesus has shown us, there is a better way to walk. So when someone asks, “Who is Jesus,” here is my answer:

Jesus is the one who has chosen to walk with me.

When I walk too slow he does not get too far ahead.

When I stumble he picks me up.

When I limp he slows his step.

When I make a wrong turn he calls me back.

When I get tired he says, “You can do it.”

And when I ask, “Where are we going,” he answers,

“We are going into life, and it’s grand, really grand.”

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.