This Man...THIS MAN

 One of my social media friends, a Christian, posted something recently about religion and what immaturity in one’s spiritual life can do.  I believe he quoted someone else, but didn’t give credit for the quote in a way that I could understand.  Here’s part of that post.

When religion remains at an immature level, it tends to create very violent people who ensconce themselves on the side of the good, the worthy, the pure, the saved. They project all their evil somewhere else and attack it over there.

Something has to be sacrificed. Blood has to be shed. Someone has to be blamed, attacked, tortured, imprisoned, or killed. Sacrificial systems create religions and governments of exclusion and violence. Yet Jesus taught and modeled inclusivity and forgiveness!

I think you get the idea.  Religious immaturity, it is said, leads to division, taking sides, and violence in the name of what is perceived as being right and pure.  Religious maturity, however, according to the one saying this, is known by its inclusivity and forgiveness.

When I read that quote the first time, my eyes zeroed in on that last statement…Jesus taught and modeled inclusivity and forgiveness…  That statement is often said by those who want to justify their support for many of the societal issues of the day…abortion, gay rights, immigration, and other issues of the day.  Those issues are sometimes argued in terms of what Jesus did some two thousand years ago in modeling how mankind should live, and emphasizing the idea that Jesus modeled inclusivity and forgiveness and asks us to do the same.

That statement is indeed true.  Jesus DID model inclusivity and forgiveness.  He did befriend the friendless.  He did give dignity to the downtrodden.  He did forgive those who many in the society of that day would have written off as incorrigible.  He indeed included everyone…and I mean everyone…in His call to follow him and his example.

So, what’s the problem?  Why am I even talking about this?  Because when we zero in on just this aspect of the life of Jesus, we get a warped picture of the Son of God.  In this scenario, we tend to see Jesus as a meek and mild itinerant preacher walking down a dusty trail with a rag-tag group of followers on to the next village so he can speak his message of inclusivity and forgiveness there.  And that’s the ONLY picture we get of him.  But there’s so, so much more to the Son of God than just the itinerant preacher picture.

Jesus never encountered an unrepentant sinner and said anything to the effect of, “Aww…it’s OK.  Don’t worry about it.  All is forgiven and forgotten.”  Jesus never told Zacchaeus the tax collector that he could continue to fleece the populace and all would be OK.  He never told the woman caught in adultery that she could go back to the adulterous relationship.  No, Jesus insisted on some kind of heart change…some kind of change in thought and action.

We need to have a more full picture of this person Jesus…the Son of God…the second person of the Trinity.  We need to understand that the Son was present at the creation of the cosmos.  “Let US make man in our image…Genesis says.”  And that to this day the Son continues to uphold the creation he fashioned by his powerful word, according to the writer of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament.

We need to get the picture when we hear Isaiah talk of Jesus as the “Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.”

We need to understand what was happening when Jesus made a whip and drove the merchants out of the Temple, calling the Temple "My Father’s House.”

And what about when Paul the Apostle says in his letter to the Phillippians:  Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Or what about the Jesus who John said he saw in Revelation chapter 1, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.  The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.  No wonder John says he fell to the ground as if he were a dead man when he saw Jesus.

And lastly, what about the Jesus who is recorded as saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.  I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

We dare not place Jesus into what for us is a comfortable box that allows him to only be “inclusive and forgiving.”  The Jesus who indeed is those things is also the Alpha and Omega.  He is the one clothed in a brilliance that will make us fall down as if we were dead.  He is also the one to whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess Him as Lord.  He is the Mighty God…the Everlasting Father.  And He…He is the one who upholds all of creation simply by His powerful word.

And if that isn’t enough, listen to what John says toward the end of his apocalypse  regarding Jesus. 

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war.  His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.  He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.  Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.  “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”  He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.  On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:  King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This man…this man is the Jesus Christ of the Bible.  May we always confess Him as such.

 

Blessings.