Who Is Jesus?

 

Matt. 16:15-17

 15 He *said to them, “But who do you yourselves say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you. Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

I heard different preachers several years ago come to three conclusions if you are to objectively ask who Jesus Christ is. He claimed to be the Son of God, to be from the Father, to be divine by saying, "I and the Father are one." He performed miracles and taught authoritatively. Some thought He was a lunatic. This was the thought expressed by his family and close friends. They wondered if He wasn’t out of His mind. Could He be having delusional thoughts.

When I studied in the psych ward there were people who thought they were Jesus Christ or the devil. They believed they had supernatural powers. They were thought by their family to be crazy and indeed they did have a mental health problem. You might remember a lady named Andea Yates who was found guilty of killing her five children by drowning them in the state of Texas. The defense argued she was crazy and not responsible for those actions. The nation asked, what reasons would there be for ruling mental illness. She thought Satan was telling her to kill the children and thought in killing them she was saving their souls.  She was committed to a mental institution,       

What made Jesus’ family think Jesus might be a lunatic? If you put yourselves in their shoes, they would say this is Jesus our brother, not the Son of the Living God. Certainly, Mary might have had a different thought because of the Christmas story events causing quite a stir among the hometown community. The word was spreading that Jesus was in all kinds of trouble with the officials. He left a perfectly good job, to do what--walk about and preach? They might be thinking, "Why don't you settle down like the rest of us and live like the rest of us and do what is expected carrying in the carpentry business. Religion is ok, in fact, admirable, but when you let it go to your head, you've gone off on the deep end.”

Jesus had no security; He wasn't out making money, wasn't settling down to a job or family. He was getting the city officials all upset. After all, the people working in the temple were also very important and knew how to interpret the Scriptures of old. If you don’t agree with them, at least you don't argue with them. That is like trying to fight city hall or the police, it only causes you problems. You want them on the good side of you not against you.

The family feared for His safety. When He'd stand up and call out the authorities, publicly rebuking them, that was dangerous. He didn’t' live in America where protest is expected if not encouraged. We enjoy putting down our public officials and political leaders, but that isn't how it is in much of the world. According to Freedom House the top five perpetrators using political persecution today are the governments of Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, and China. There are many incidents of churches being destroyed and Christian leaders being imprisoned and killed. We saw in the news yesterday controversy over violent immigrants being deported, persecution of Christians perpetrated by various Islamist groups: Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Houthi movement in Yemen, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and participants in the Kachin conflict in Myanmar. People are arrested, beaten, or not allowed to vote if they are against the dictator.

In Jesus’ day the authorities would attack Christians. Jesus picked a group of 12 people who were not influential, in fact fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, and nobodies, which isn't exactly the group who was going to conquer Rome. Jesus’s family was concerned when Jesus’ following was growing. The plan was to talk to Him and see if they couldn't convince Jesus to come home with them to get Him out of public eye and calm down.

Some people would have to conclude, if Jesus really thought He was, the Son of God, then He must be a lunatic; well-meaning, but misguided.

I remember the challenge from a youth speaker when I was in high school. He asked, “If being a believer in Jesus became illegal here, would there be enough evidence in your life to convict you?”

Good question.