“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5

“It is time, I believe, to recognize not only who Jesus was in his own day, despite his contemporaries’ failure to recognize him, but also who he is, and will be, for our own. That puzzle continues. Perhaps, indeed, it has been the same in our own day. Perhaps “even his own people”—this time not the Jewish people of the first century, but the would-be Christian people of the Western world—have not been ready to recognize Jesus himself. We want a “religious” leader, not a king! We want someone to save our souls…But if Christians don’t get Jesus right, what chance is there that other people will bother much with him?” (“The Challenge to the Churches”, Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 5)

How important do you think it is to “get Jesus right”? I believe it remains enormously important to our world, and our society today. It is important to our personal life, our religious lives, and our political life. Some might say “Well, Jesus is who Jesus is.” And that is true. We do not want to make more of less of Jesus than what he truly is. So, to begin with, we believe Jesus was, and is G-d’s Son….G-d Incarnate. The Gospel of John states that Jesus was pre-existent – that Jesus was there at the time of creation – a co-creator with G-d and the Holy Spirit. Other Gospels only state that Jesus either was born in the lineage of King David, or he appeared around the time of John the Baptist, his cousin. 

This is where we start as we look into who Jesus was. The danger of which we must be aware is this: we must be careful not to make Jesus into our own personal image of him, rather than to understand that he is the image of G-d, come to earth to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven. As such, Jesus was both a “Son of Man”, and the “Son of G-d”. He was pre-existent – he was there at creation. And he was born to Mary and worked with Mary’s husband, Joseph, as a carpenter. This is just the beginning…but every great story begins somewhere.

Pastor Dave

“As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. ³⁷ When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: ³⁸ “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” ³⁹ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” ⁴⁰ “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” ⁴¹ As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it ⁴² and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴ They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Luke 19:36-44

“The crowd went wild as he got nearer. This was the moment they’d been waiting for. All the old songs came flooding back, and they were singing, chanting, cheering and laughing. At last their dreams were going to come true. But in the middle of it all their leader wasn’t singing. Yet their dreams were indeed coming true. But not in the way they had imagined. He was not the king they expected. He wasn’t like the monarchs of old who sat on their jeweled and ivory thrones, dispensing their justice and wisdom. Nor was he the great warrior-king some had wanted. He didn’t raise an army and ride into battle at its head. He was riding on a donkey. And he was weeping, weeping for the dream that had to die…” (“A Very Odd Sort of King”, Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 1)

This is one of the best known scenes of the Gospels – at least one that most of us are familiar with. It is the scene from Palm Sunday. What was it all about? What did Jesus think he was doing? These are the questions we need to ask. When the Gospels tell us that Jesus did this or that, or when they tell us that Jesus said this or that, it is worth our time to ask ourselves “Did he do that?”, and “Did he say that?” It does not take away from our faith – it adds to our faith – for in asking the questions, we should be propelled to seek the answers. In this case, we have fairly good information that Jesus did ride into Jerusalem, he did ride into a storm that was brewing, and soon he would be engulfed in turmoil. His followers tried to make it into a “Triumphal Entry”, in fact it is known to us as just that. But Jesus probably was feeling conflicted, scared, angry, and sad. He weeps over Jerusalem….and then he turns over the tables of the money changers because Jesus is angry that they are turning his “House of Prayer into a Den of Robbers.” We see how complicated Jesus was, and how complicated his mission – and yet we will learn even more about Jesus as we study his life, teachings, and mission. The more we study and discern Jesus and his life, the fuller our lives will be.

Pastor Dave