The truth is that Jesus is not who we think he is. I’ve told the story before about the friend of a friend who was an Episcopal priest taking his first appointment in a small parish in southwest Virginia. He decided, when he arrived at the church, that the arrangement of the chancel area in the front of the sanctuary was all wrong. So for his first Sunday he moved all of the furnishings to where he thought they ought to be.
I’m pretty sure this is one of those things that warn everybody against doing when they go to seminary. You don’t make major changes to the worship space on your first Sunday because somebody is likely to get upset. Sure enough, as people were shaking his hand at the door, one dear saint of the church came up to him and said, “If Jesus Christ knew what you had done to the front of this church, he’d be rolling over in his grave.”
Jesus is not who we think he is and the reason for that is that we keep on making Jesus over to look like us. A Harris poll came out recently and it said that the person who most Americans mentioned when asked to name a hero is…Barack Obama. Right after him is Jesus. God is 11th in the poll, which is a little confusing since Christians would say that gives God two spots.[i] What’s amazing is that after all this time Jesus consistently ranks at the top of surveys like this.
If you dig a little deeper, however, you discover that who Jesus is looks very different to different people. Some people look to Jesus and see a great teacher. Some people look to him and see a miracle worker. Some see him as a great historical figure who started a very influential movement that has had a lasting impact on the world. Some people see him as a prophet – even some other religions like Islam, though the story they tell about Jesus is very different from the gospel accounts.
Some see him as the son of God. The Christ. The Messiah. The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The one who was fully human and fully divine.
Sometimes we sing about Jesus and talk about him as the one who is high and lifted up, exalted at the right of God. And sometimes we sing about Jesus as being right beside us. “And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.” You might think, after that song, that Andy is Jesus’ other name! But the great mistake we make is in thinking that the way we are thinking about Jesus is the only way to be thinking about Jesus. The truth is that Jesus is not who we think he is.
It’s not unusual to fall into this trap. Jesus’ disciples did it, too. Along with all of the other people who followed Jesus. In the segment of Mark’s gospel that we read today you see how there are many, many people around Jesus all the time now. Jesus cannot seem to get away from the crowds, even though he’s travelling all over the place.
The Pharisees come up from Jerusalem to take him to task. 4,000 people come out into the wilderness and he feeds them. People bring him a blind man and he heals him. Everybody is looking for Jesus, but the people who understand who he really is are few and far between. The woman who touched the hem of his garment and was healed. The synagogue ruler who came to appeal on behalf of his sick daughter. The Syrophoenician woman who comes to Jesus even though she is a foreigner – an outsider to the promise – and who seems to have to argue with Jesus in order for him to give her what she wants for her daughter. These people seem to get it. They seem to know who he is. Along with the unclean spirits, of course.
But the disciples? They’re clueless. Even after seeing Jesus feed 5,000 people miraculously they can’t get a grip on how he’s going to feed just 4,000. When Jesus starts to warn them about the leaven of the religious leaders and of old King Herod he is using yeast as a metaphor for how the corruption of these figures can grow and expand. But the disciples think that he is chastising them for not having enough bread for their journey. They just can’t get their minds around what is going on.
So when Jesus asks them who people are saying that he is, we don’t have high hopes that this crew is going to be able to figure it out. But it’s an important moment in this story. This hapless crew may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they will be the nucleus of the new church. These will be the ones that have to tell the story. They will be among the first to testify.
“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks.
“John the Baptist,” they say. John who has just been beheaded by Herod but who had a large following and who called the people to repentance just like Jesus has been doing. “Elijah,” they say. Elijah, the prophet, who was known for his miraculous signs and for the fact that he was taken up into heaven in a whirlwind. Legend said that he would return in advance of the day of the Lord. “One of the prophets,” they say.
“But you…who do you say that I am?”
The question hangs in the air. Who dares to say it? Who dares to say what they all hope but struggle to believe. Finally it’s Peter who answers Jesus. “You are the Christ. You are not the warm-up act. You are not the one who prepares the way. You are the way. You are the main event.”
Jesus tells Peter to be quiet. Don’t let the cat out of the bag. And then he proceeds to tell them, for the first time, where this rapid journey full of ‘immediately’s is headed. “The son of humanity must suffer many things.” He’s speaking in the third person but he’s talking about himself. “The son of humanity must be rejected by the chief priests and the elders and the scribes. He must be killed. And after three days to rise again.”
The end of the road is suffering? The end of the road is rejection? The end of the road is death? Even with the rising again, this is not what the disciples or the crowds had come to expect.
This is Jesus! The one who stares down demons and binds the strong man. The one who is so powerful that even the hem of his garment is infused with supernatural power. The one who can feed multitudes and walk on water. Suffering? Rejection? Death?
We still can’t handle Jesus’ death. It just doesn’t compute. I think it must be because we are too busy thinking about what Jesus can do for us…about how Jesus can bless us as we are without there being any change or any pain or any transformation. The idea that the journey might involve some struggle or even that some parts of us may have to be put to death so that a new self can arise…that idea is disturbing.
Which brings me to Jean-Claude Van Damme. Do you remember Jean-Claude? He made a series of very gory, very forgettable action movies. I’ve never watched one all the way through. They’re just not worth anybody’s time. But I do remember finding one on TV one day – Cyborg was the name of it – and it includes a scene that shows just how hard the idea of Jesus’ death is for us.
In the film, Van Damme’s character is literally crucified to the mast of a ship. But Van Damme is no wimp. He’s not going to let the nails holding him to the mast in the middle of a raging storm be the end of him. He proceeds to wrench the nails out of the mast by his own brute strength – something that is not humanly possible.
That movie seems to suggest that a real hero wouldn’t have gone to the cross and died. A real hero wouldn’t have submitted to the worst that the world could do to him. A real hero wouldn’t have tried to change the rules about how the world works – he would have just been better at the using the rules as they are and would have claimed victory on the world’s terms.
Jesus is not that kind of hero. Jesus did not come to play by the rules as they exist. You know what rules I’m talking about. The rules about how might makes right. About how you can do anything you want as long as you’re rich enough or strong enough or beautiful enough or well-connected enough. The rules about how more is always more and always better than less.
If that’s the kind of hero Jesus was going to be, he would have marched on Jerusalem at the head of a mob or an army. He would have overthrown Herod and Caesar and any other ruler who dared to get in his way. He would have ended up on a throne and he would not have ended up on a cross. Maybe that’s the scenario the disciples expected but Jesus is going on a different journey.
You see, Jesus is not who you think he is. He’s not going to affirm your expectations – he’s going to change them forever. He is going to meet you where you are and accept you as you are but he’s not going to leave you that way. He’s not going to let the stories you tell yourself and the tapes that play in your head be the thing that defines you. He’s going to challenge you to get over yourself and discover what he knows you can be. And he’s going to do the same to the world.
Did you really think that when Jesus came out of the wilderness and declared that the kingdom of God was at hand that you wouldn’t be affected? Did you really think that when he was calling people to walk who couldn’t walk and to hear who couldn’t hear and to see who couldn’t see that it was only about them? Did you really think that this journey was not for you?
Jesus has made the turn toward Jerusalem. It’s all about the cross now. And he’s inviting you to come. But whether you respond to the call or not – know this – Jesus is changing the world. Because he’s not what you think. He’s more. Thanks be to God.
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