Who Is This Jesus?

    Luke 22:66-71

You'd think they would have known. After all, they had spent their lives studying and teaching the Scriptures, and leading God's people. But the blind often lead the blind into darkness and no one even knows they've been going in circles, until Someone comes with a Light.

    They point blank asked Him to tell them who He was. 

"If you are the Christ," they said, "tell us."

"Are you the Son of God?" 

    Standing right there in front of them, He did just that, clearly and plainly for all to hear. 

"You are right in saying I am." 

Christ before the High Priest
about 1617, Gerrit van Honthorst
copyright National Gallery of London

    I Am. Jesus' words echoed God's first naming of Himself to Moses, "Tell them I Am sent you." The Mystery, Majesty and Magnitude was far too great to fit into an ordinary Name. Centuries later, here was the Messiah claiming that same Title...that same Mystery, that same Majesty and with that same Magnitude. How could this have been missed by the very ones who should have recognized Him? How did they not know Who He was? What caused their blindness?

Perhaps when 

 Hearts are hardened by jealousy we cannot hear the whisper of His Voice.

or the 

 Fear of losing power & position put blinders on our faith,

while

 Our finite minds limit an infinite God with intellectual pride 

and 

Our selfish expectations turn into demands of who we think God should be.

Head knowledge alone doesn't melt a heart of stone. And only Jesus can transform a heart with a stone rolled away. 

    Here we sit today, with endless knowledge at our fingertips and the empty tomb open before us and who do we say this Jesus is? 

    If we say that we believe Jesus is our Savior, are we living blind and deaf to Him in our midst?  How does this Jesus change our hearts, our lives, our ways? Do we love more, do we extend mercy and grace to others even when they don't deserve it? Does it change the kind of husband/wife, parent and friend that we are? Does it make us yearn to know Him more? 

    The Mystery, Magnitude and Majesty are standing right in front of us this Holy Week...may we all have eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts that respond with the eternal joy of faith that lives out this bold claim:

He is I Am!

    

Never Say Never

  

   He said it. Everyone there heard him. When Jesus told Peter his faith was going to falter, Peter emphatically denied it. He even upped the ante with a mixture of pride and self-righteous indignation, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." There it was...Peter's words, not so unlike our own, "I'd NEVER do that." 

Never say never.

"I'd never hurt a friend"...and then we gossip.

"I'd never tell a lie"...and then we give a false impression.

"I'd never kill"...and our careless words destroy someone.

"I'd never be disloyal"... then the going gets tough, and we bail.

"I'd never deny Christ"...and yet we do.

   

    The faltering comes to all of us. The moment we invest in our own abilities, we, like Peter, are vulnerable to being "sifted" by Satan. That is our first misstep. This is the subtle, yet dangerous attitude that takes us on that first step toward denial. We see in Peter's story, the next step. "Peter followed at a distance."(Luke 22:54) and then quickly after that, the third step, "Peter sat down with them."(Luke 22:55)

No longer close to Jesus' strength and protection, Peter then tries to identify himself with the crowd. 

    The stage is set and the three denials that he ever even knew Jesus come swiftly and without thought of anything other than his own self-protection. 

Faith has been replaced by fear.

And the rooster crows.

It is at this climactic point where the inevitability of human failure collides with the purpose of Christ's crucifixion. 

"The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter."(vs.61)

It was that heart penetrating look, that simultaneously spoke of truth and grace...of deep knowing and merciful forgiveness...of sorrow and of love.

It was in that moment that we see clearly the impossibility of our own ability to remain loyal to our Savior in contrast to the faithfulness of Jesus, even to His sacrificial death on a Cross 

for us. 

And just as it did for Peter, that realization should take us to our knees, in humble repentance.

As the grace of it all takes our breath away.

Fight the Good Fight

        When life has you painted into a corner, how do you respond? What weapons do you use? Do you come out swinging...flailing and fighting to defend yourself? Or perhaps you run as fast as your heart will take you...trying desperately to separate yourself from the emotional chaos of it all. 

      We often respond to life's difficulties with earthly weapons of self-defense. 

     The sword was what Jesus' disciples chose when they were confronted by the soldiers and crowd who came to arrest their Friend and Leader. Quickly and impulsively Peter cut off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the Jewish high priest. Peter's response to difficulty was instinctive and swift...and perhaps not so unlike how we often react when someone accuses, threatens, or criticizes us or someone we love. 

    But this Holy Week, Jesus shows us a radically different way...with transforming weapons of power unlike any we might have chosen on our own. 

"But Jesus answered, 'No more of this!' And He touched the man's ear and healed him."~Luke 22:51

    In one of the final acts of His earthly ministry with His disciples, Jesus teaches them (and us), a crucial lesson. When the "battle" was at a critical point, when Jesus could have used all of Heaven's power to destroy those who came with evil intent...He uses the divine instead of the deadly, the poignant instead of the poison and from His quiver of defense, He pulls these weapons:
1) THE WEAPON OF TRUST in the Father's plan to be best, even if it meant suffering and difficulty.
2) THE WEAPON OF PRAYER. Jesus had just spent the previous hours in communion with the Father, being strengthened through prayer. 
3) THE WEAPON OF LOVE. This is the most powerful of all...this is the heart of what motivated His entire life, death and resurrection. It was this love for you and me that brought Him to that night in the Garden and ultimately to the Cross. With His holy hands and heart He wielded the "weapon" that not only healed one man's ear... 

but restored the brokenness of all humanity.

May we fight the good fight in the same way as Christ...with trust, prayer and love. 

       

Bridge Building

Have you ever been in a check-out line and witnessed 2 people who are angrily hurling words at each other like weapons. Most of us just want to turn away or run from observing their conflict...it's uncomfortable...it's embarrassing. We might even think, "I'm glad that's not me in that argument. Maybe what I'm dealing with isn't that bad after all." 
Sadly, this illustrates the very picture we give the world when we, as Christians, publically spar and jab each other...and yes, hurl words like weapons, when we disagree on things publically~ESPECIALLY on social media and the internet. 
I have a father who is a Presbyterian minister, a brother who is an Episcopal priest and I am in a Southern Baptist seminary and a member of a non-denominational church. So, obviously I am not saying that I think all faith-filled, Christ loving believers have to agree on everything. I am very thankful that my "Heinz 57" family can be together, enjoy each other's company and even have loving, humble discussions on topics of faith privately and face to face. But that is the point: 
AS CHRISTIANS, WE NEED TO DISCUSS OUR DIFFERENCES PRIVATELY AND IF AT ALL POSSIBLE FACE TO FACE AND WE NEED TO RESPECT THE OTHER PERSONS INTERPRETATIONS EVEN IF WE CHOOSE TO HUMBLY DISAGREE. 

WE MUST STOP FEEDING EACH OTHER TO THE LIONS.

LET'S BE BRIDGE BUILDERS, NOT BRIDGE BURNERS.

Hidden behind the shield of our computor screens, we forget that every insult, every harsh word and even just the petty nature of so much of it all is weakening the power of our witness to each and every hurting and lost person who reads it. Perhaps they look at us and think, "I'm glad that's not me in that argument. Maybe what I'm dealing with isn't that bad after all." And they turn away...
And this was Christ's prayer, just before He was arrested, for all of us who call ourselves Christ followers:
"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be ONE as we are ONE: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete UNITY to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."