Scripture: Mark 8:27-30
Focus on the Word
Two questions Jesus asked His disciples stand valid today. “Who do people say that I am? Who do you that say I am?” The answers to the first question are many and varied. Just about everybody has an opinion of some kind about Jesus. Jesus heard the answers the disciples gave and then drove the question home into their hearts. Forget about what the others may say. Who do you say that I am?
In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis gave one of his reasons for writing. He said,
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
In A.D. 38, Gregory of Nazianzus said this about Jesus:
He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life. Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water. Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest. Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King. Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons. Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears. Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world. Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd. Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.
Who do you say Jesus is?
How do you live in light of it?
Today’s Prayer
Spirit of Truth, direct our attention to the life of Jesus so that we might see what you would have us be….We know we cannot be like Jesus except as Jesus was unlike us, being your Son. Make us cherish that unlikeness that we may grow into the likeness made possible by Jesus’ resurrection. Amen.
(Stanley Hauerwas)
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