Sermon: Jesus, who is this man? Jesus' Position

Looking at Jesus' Life: His Position

- Looking at the expectations people had for a messiah, and how Jesus filled them. These claims are worth considering.

King of the Jews: (political,military leader - John 18:36)

Judge: (bringing judgement on the ungodly - John 5:22)

Prophet: (proclaiming the Lord - Luke 4:16-21)

High Priest: (destroy the temple, rebuild it in 3 days - John 2:19)

Lamb of God: (takes away sin of the world - John 1:29)

Son of Man: (give his life as a ransom for many - Mark 10:45)

Expectations: what we expect from God is not always what God has promised to give.

- also, our expectations are often rooted in our context.

Desire: people at the time were really keen for a messiah. What do we desire? Matt 24:27-34

Fulfilment: Jesus fulfilled prophecies about the coming messiah. He is God's Messiah.

http://www.jewfaq.org/mashiach.htm

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org

Words

Our titles say a lot about who we are. In today's highly competitive job market, and in a culture where presentation is everything, people are often looking to squeeze every bit of status and good impression out of previous employment. After a little research online, I have discovered that I can describe my employment history like this:

I began my employment during high school at a golf driving range as a reclamation and hygiene officer (collecting and cleaning golf balls), before a brief stint as an underwater ceramics supervisor (washing dishes) and an environmental service engineer (cleaner) at a local bowling club. When I started university, I was able to snag a job as a beverage consultant (salesman in a bottle shop) before finding my feet as a petroleum transfer technician (petrol station attendant). From there, I was a projects manager (sub-editor of a magazine), and went on to become a director of first impressions (receptionist), before finally finding myself in the field of digital text management (typist).

With these inflated titles, though, comes an expectation of greatness. Imagine looking through the singles ads in a dating service, and seeing, “Young Underwater Ceramics Supervisor seeks new adventures with the right girl”. You think the guy goes deep sea diving to fix oil rig facilities or something! You're in for a rude shock if you answer that advert and meet a dishwasher.

Last week, this week and next week we are looking at the life of Jesus. As Ben said last week, we can't fully appreciate the importance of Jesus' death without understanding something of who he was in life. Ben last week looked at Jesus' power – how with few words, but mighty actions, Jesus made it obvious that he was something other that an ordinary man. But this week, we're going to look at Jesus' position in the world – the various titles that people gave to him, and that he gave to himself. With those titles came expectations about how Jesus would do things, about what his job description was. The most important title is sort of a catch-all that covers a wide range of meanings, and meant different things to different people. That title was Messiah in Hebrew, or Christ in Greek. The actual meaning of the word is 'anointed one', and refers to the spiritual anointing that God would put onto someone to mark them out as a special servant to him. You might remember that the early kings of Israel were anointed in this way, and this was represented by a sort of coronation ceremony where they would be anointed with oil.

The problem is that when a position is defined broadly as “A servant of God who will be anointed by his Spirit”, people start reading their own situation and their problems into the idea, and seeing the messiah as being specifically designed for their circumstances. So while the idea of a messiah was not new for the Jews, by the time of the first century when Jesus actually came, so many people had so many different ideas about what exactly the messiah's role was going to be, that there was confusion and disagreement about exactly what Jesus should be doing if he really is the messiah. So we end up with a long list of expectations that the people at Jesus' time were expecting from the Christ, many of which started off as based in the Bible, but were understood to do with their specific situation or desires in mind.

The Jews at the time were a people defeated. They were living under the governance of the Roman Empire, paying taxes to Caesar, and so felt that the land that God promised them was not truly theirs any more. In this context, some people expected a physical warrior or a political leader to be sent from God, because at the time the Jews didn't have for themselves a king in David's line, or a throne to put him on. They were looking for a messiah in the line of David, a king who loved God and who would be a brave and powerful warrior - who could unite the Jews, defeat the Romans and claim back the land that was theirs by divine providence. This would be the fabled King of the Jews – a king in David's line who could reign over God's people and solve their political problems. But Jesus died, crucified by the Roman government. The Romans weren't defeated, they didn't leave Judea. In a few years, they would burn the temple down. So how could Jesus be this messiah king? The messiah is God's chosen, he can't fail!

Some looked for a moral messiah – a judge sent by God to deal with the inappropriate lifestyle that many were living at the time. To a greater or lesser extent the Jews had learned the lesson of the exile – that God hated idolatry – and they now spurned any form of religious idols in their city. But alcoholism and prostitution were still abundant, as were greed, oppression of the weak, exploitation and injustice. People looked to God to send a judge who would bring down a sentence and a punishing decree on those who were living ungodly lives. But Jesus didn't seem to do that. In fact, he was busy partying with the drunks, eating with the traitorous tax collectors, talking with the prostitutes, standing up for the adulteress. How could God's chosen Messiah do such things? How could he fail to judge those people for their wrong living?

Still others looked for more of a spiritual awakening. It had been 400 years since God had last spoken to his people through a prophet. 400 years of silence from God, and his people were desperate for a new word. They wanted a great prophet like Elijah, or Jeremiah, to come and proclaim the message of God. They wanted a promised prophet who would come and usher in the Day of the Lord – the beginning of that wonderful time where God would judge the evil of the world, call the faithful to himself, and be with his people forever. But Jesus seemed to say things that no other prophet would ever say. He wasn't claiming simply to speak the words that God had spoken to him. He was claiming that these were his own words! He was actually claiming to be God, the great “I Am”! How could the Messiah, the servant of God, blaspheme in such a way?

There were those who were looking to God to send a great High Priest who would bring God's proper religion back to the people of Israel. Remember, at this time the Jews had two high priests and several religious factions, and no doubt there was any number of arguments about how the temple rites and rituals should be done in the face of Roman occupation. But how could the Messiah speak out against the religious orders? How could he turn over the tables of money changers in the temple? He actually said cryptic things about the temple being destroyed, and him being able to rebuild it in three days. He failed to follow Sabbath laws. He talked about worship not taking place in Jerusalem, where the temple was, but “in spirit and in truth” – and he talked about that with a Samaritan woman, not even a Jew! What sort of messianic High Priest would that be?

Even John the Baptist had his own ideas about what the Messiah would be like, and he knew that it was Jesus, because God told him! When John the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, “It's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” And we think, “Ahh, now someone gets it. Now someone understands.” But there is a problem – not even John the Baptist really understood what Jesus' mission was. When John the Baptist calls Jesus the “Lamb of God”, the picture is obviously one mainly of the passover lamb. But this is not a lamb that takes away sins – this is a lamb that protects Israel from judgement and redeems Israel as God's people from slavery in Egypt. At the time, people were talking about the picture of a warrior lamb, a young ram who would conquer for God. John the Baptist talks about Jesus taking sin away, but is he going to do that as a sacrificial lamb, or as a warrior lamb? Remember that when John is in prison and hears about Jesus' ministry, he actually sends his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

All of these people had their own thoughts, their own ideas about what kind of Messiah was really needed, and what sort of things God should be doing in their situation. But they were all, to a greater or lesser extent, confused or mistaken. They were confused or mistaken because they allowed their own concerns, their own situation, blind them to the big picture, to God's will. God knew what was really required, what the big problems were, and Jesus came as Messiah to deal with the problems that God saw as important. And this is by no means merely an ancient problem. We must confess to doing the same thing today. How often do we look at our situation and say, “I wish God would do this,” or, “Why doesn't God do that?” Think of the most common questions that our society asks about God. Two books written by John Dickson are, “If I were God, I'd end all the Pain” and “If I were God, I'd make myself Clearer”. These are common questions – why does God allow pain in this situation? Why doesn't God make himself more obvious to me? People ask those questions most usually because their own lives have been touched with pain, or because they can't seem to see God at work in their lives. But even Christians make this mistake. We pray for things, and then if we don't see our prayers answered in the exact way we think they should be, we get discouraged, we wonder if God is doing anything at all.

Let's all be aware of this, and strive to understand God's will, and his plan, before we question how he goes about fulfilling it. The more closely we follow God's plan, the more in touch we are with him, the less likely we are to be surprised by what he does, or at least we'll have a better understanding that his ways are best, even if we don't understand them.

What was God's plan? It was something that no-one had foreseen. God would come into the world as a human, to live a human life, but perfectly. Jesus would be the son of God, God's representative in every way on earth. And he would then die as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of humanity that keep them separated from God. This, to God, was the big problem that needed solving. Jesus explains it in Matthew 16:21, “Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Even the apostle Peter, after he had recognised that Jesus was not only the Christ, but was God's very own Son, could not agree with Jesus telling them about God's plan working this way. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

But it did happen. It happened exactly as Jesus said it would. Because God's plan was more far-reaching than any of the Jews at the time had ever considered. Jesus gave himself the title, 'Son of Man'. It was a lesser known title from the book of Daniel, and when he used it, people weren't sure what to expect. But he was able to clarify why God had sent him as his special servant, anointed by the Spirit. Jesus made it clear in Mark 10:45, when he said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus was going to die as a ransom payment, to free God's people from their slavery to sin. And he would rise back from the dead three days later to prove that this is what he had done.

Because, you see, Jesus is the King of the Jews. He freely admitted it to the religious leaders and to Pontius Pilate. But he did not admit this because he was a political ruler, come to defeat the Romans. Jesus claimed to be King of the Jews because he is in fact the King of all Kings, because Jesus is God. Jesus has power over every ruler on the earth, he controls every nation. His death wasn't a failure – it was key to his success. John would later write in his book of Revelation, 17:14, “the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings”.

Jesus is the great judge, who comes to bring judgement on the world. But not yet. When judgement comes, it will come through the Son. Jesus will sit in judgement over all people, to hold them to account for their sinful lives of rebellion against God. But first, he came to give people a warning, to call them to repent: to turn their lives around, and follow God rather than living their lives against him. He reached out to those who others wouldn't, to offer them a chance to hear this message and be saved from judgement. And so it was the drunks, the prostitutes, the traitorous tax collectors who heard this warning and took the warning seriously, because they could see how obviously bad their lives were.

Jesus is the great prophet. He brought the word of God to people, and it was his words, because Jesus is God! It's not blasphemy to say you are God if it's true. He read out the prophecy of Isaiah concerning him, which said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour,” to which he said, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” He was the one God sent to shout out the good news that God wanted to fix the broken relationship, he wanted to start the time of God's favour with his people.

Jesus was the greatest High Priest possible. Being God, he could come into the presence of God to intercede for humanity without any consideration of sinfulness blocking his path. He was able to transcend the need for temples and sacrifices, by offering a once off sacrifice of himself, to take away sin. So the destruction of the temple does not mark the failure of Jesus as Messiah, because he replaced the temple services by interceding between people and God directly, so that they can worship God in spirit and in truth. When Jesus died, this was signified by the temple curtain miraculously tearing in two, symbolising that there was no longer a barrier between people and God. The book of Hebrews says this in 4:14 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

So Jesus is the Lamb of God – a sacrifice for sins in his death, and an almighty conqueror over the power of sin and death in his resurrection. God ended up having all the elements of the Messiah existing in Jesus, but they were there in a way to deal with the problems as he saw them, not simply the problems the people wanted solved. This Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, is the Jesus who died for us. King of Kings, Great Prophet, Judge, High Priest, and Son of God.

We should give the Jews some credit – at least they were looking to God for answers! They knew enough to know that God was going to send a Messiah, and so they had faith, and were looking for that messiah to come, even if they got the details wrong. As we wrap up today, let me ask you – are you looking forward to what God has planned? Because Jesus is coming back – to judge, and to usher in the Time of the Lord's Favour in its fullness. Just as the Jews looked for a Messiah from God, so we should be looking to Jesus' return, as he promised In Matt 24, “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

"Immediately after the distress of those days "'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'

"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

The return of Jesus is going to be loud, brilliant, and above all obvious. You won't be able to mistake it. Everyone will see it and hear it. That is what God has promised. Is that what we look forward to? Is that what we desire – for God to set everything right by the second coming of his Messiah? We know he's coming – he told us! And while we know that God will work in this world for the good of those who love him, we also know that ultimately our desire for justice, judgement, and an eternity without pain or suffering will be made reality on that day, and not before. As Christians, that is where our hope lies. Any other hope, that isn't in God's will, is ultimately in vain.

Do you live your life in the certain knowledge that Jesus is coming back, and when he does, all this that we know now will be gone? Do you live in the knowledge that only the things we do for eternity will matter? That all our problems will then be solved? Does that knowledge impact how you live your life? To know that injustice, and pain, and sin and suffering are transient, but justice, and love, and joy and relationship with God are eternal? Is Jesus going to come and find you with your hands in the air going, “Yes, finally! He's back, Woohoo!” or is he going to come and find you staring in disbelief, mourning at the realisation of the truth, saying, “Why didn't I take this seriously?”

Let's pray...