The Name Above...

[00:00:01] It's in the King's Chapel in Boston. [00:00:05] In the King's Chapel. It was, well, formerly an Anglican church, but now it's operated by the Unitarians. [00:00:14] And in this church, in the King's Chapel, there's this gallery of marble busts. [00:00:20] Images of some of history's most famous people. Socrates and Aristotle are there. [00:00:28] Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, Confucius, Moses, Muhammad. [00:00:44] But not jesus christ. [00:00:50] And I'm told that the reason why is because the Unitarians didn't want any mythological images that came from the Roman church. [00:01:04] You know, those mythological individuals such as Jesus or Mary or the saints. [00:01:19] Now, I don't know about you, but I find that somewhat troubling. [00:01:27] Here's the interesting thing. [00:01:30] Jesus is shown among the marble busts in the Boston Public Library. [00:01:38] There he is. [00:01:40] But in the Boston Public Library, he's just one of many famous people from out history. I think that's also troubling. It's just not right. [00:01:52] Because, you see, Christ is a figure of incomparable worth and distinction. [00:02:02] Well, that right there is an understatement, isn't it? [00:02:06] If you're a believer in him. [00:02:10] And I say all of this because when Jesus asked the question of his disciples as we heard it in today's Gospel, when he said, who do you say that I am? [00:02:22] Well, was he just another one in the crowd? [00:02:28] Did his disciples really have any idea who he was? [00:02:33] Apparently Peter did. Peter responded, in Peter like fashion, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. [00:02:42] Now, Peter may not have known fully what that meant, but he was absolutely right. [00:02:49] Jesus is the Christ, the sent one, the Messiah. [00:02:56] There's no one like him. [00:03:00] There's no one else who is the son of the living God. [00:03:06] And of course, we heard the text. Jesus blessed Peter and then he made a prophetic pronouncement over him and his church. We heard it. Jesus said, I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. He wasn't talking about Peter the rock. He was talking about this statement that he is the Christ, the son of the living God, the sent one. That's the rock. He's the Savior. That's the rock the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against. [00:03:45] Would you pray with me, Father in heaven, teach us to believe that Jesus is our Savior. [00:04:01] Amen. [00:04:05] So that bust of Jesus in the Boston Public Library, shouldn't it be lifted up higher than all the others or make all the others far below that bust? I think so. [00:04:21] Maybe you think so too. [00:04:23] But what I'd like to do with you today is examine why we might think that. [00:04:29] And I have a number of reasons why. The first one is because of God's action in the world. Now, all the major religions of the world agree on two facts. The first one is the human race once upon a time had a close relationship with God. [00:04:48] And number two is somehow we lost it. [00:04:53] Now, where religions disagree is on how that relationship might be restored. [00:05:00] So religions are divided into two main active religions and reactive religions. Now stay with me here a little bit. An active religion teaches that a person must do something to restore that relationship with God. Judaism says, well, obey the law. [00:05:21] Hinduism says, meditate, have the right diet and squelch all earthly passions. Islam says, give alms to the poor, pray five times a day and fight Allah's holy wars. [00:05:40] Now, I recognize those are really broad brushes of those religious movements, but in every case they say you need to do something, you need to take the initiative, you need to reach out. [00:06:00] That's active religion. The other sort of religion is reactive. And so far as I've been able to tell, Christianity is its only representative. Christianity teaches that there is nothing that we can do to restore our relationship with God. Only God himself can do that through Jesus Christ. God acted decisively and capably and once for all. [00:06:23] All we can do is react. [00:06:26] And the way we react is in repentance and faith, trusting in the God who gave us the very faith to take hold of him. [00:06:38] That's what happened at our baptism. [00:06:40] And we see this actually in Genesis 1 through 3. In fact, I will urge you and commend to you to spend some time later today reading Genesis 1:1 through 3. In that particular account, Adam and Eve we will see, turned from God and turned to Satan and to sin. [00:07:01] And suddenly all they know is fear and shame. [00:07:08] But God acts. [00:07:11] What does he do? In the cool of the evening, God walks into their garden and he says, where are you? [00:07:22] Seeking out Adam and Eve. He asks, where are you? And he seeks them and he finds them. And he unfolds to them his divine plan. [00:07:31] At God's initiative, an animal is slain, the first blood sacrifice, prefiguring for us what God would do for all humanity by sacrificing his own Son. And he promises a Savior. [00:07:47] Already in Genesis 1 through 3, there's this promise. [00:07:52] And he's going to crush the enemy in the process. [00:08:00] Well, that's one reason we might think we should elevate Christ's head in the Boston Public Library. [00:08:13] Here's another one. Prophecy did you know this is a distinctive of Jesus Christ that in his life and ministry it was all predicted way before he was born. The Old Testament as we call it, was written over a 1500 year period. And in its 39 books a savior is predicted over 300 times. [00:08:38] And those predictions are really quite specific. The Savior sent from God would have a virgin birth and would know poverty and he'd be born in Bethlehem and he'd be called a Nazarene and he'd come from the tribe of Judah and of the house of David and he would carry on a ministry of miracles and yet he'd be rejected by his own people and he'd be a suffering servant and he would die like a sacrificial lamb and yet not one of his bones would be broken. [00:09:09] All of that predicted over 300 prophecies and Jesus Christ fulfills every single one of them. So indeed he is the one promised of old Jesus. [00:09:24] Well, as I said in the children's message, it's well in Greek. [00:09:32] As it was spoken. [00:09:34] Hebrew is Joshua or Yeshua, which means savior or health giver. Christ means the anointed one, the one promise, the one sent. So the anointed one of God to bring our salvation or to bring our health. [00:10:00] But here's another, his teachings. [00:10:04] When someone looks at Christ's teachings, a further distinctive is found. [00:10:09] Now other religious leaders will say, I have taught you the truth. [00:10:13] Jesus says I am the truth. [00:10:19] Some like to say that Jesus was a great teacher, but that he wasn't God. [00:10:25] In truth, Christ has not left that option open to us. A man who said the sort of things that Christ said about himself is either absolutely correct or a big liar, or worse, a lunatic. [00:10:39] Just listen. [00:10:41] Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father who says that I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [00:10:55] Before Abraham was I am, or this one, I will come again and receive you to myself. [00:11:06] Now those are bold statements of Christ. And either he's right or he's wrong. Either he's telling the truth or he's lying, or worse, he's deluded. Yet the amazing thing is Jesus taught with such authority and his lifestyle never contradicted his words. Merciful love, sterling character, extraordinary miracles, all of those accompanied his teaching. [00:11:32] And then there's well, the witness of history. [00:11:38] I mean, think about this. [00:11:40] Socrates and Aristotle, they each taught for 40 years. Plato taught for 50 years. [00:11:47] Jesus Christ only taught for three. [00:11:50] Yet who has influenced the world more 130 years of classical thought or three years of Christ's teaching. [00:12:03] Yet he was born in relative obscurity. He never had many followers. [00:12:09] He never commanded an army, erected no buildings. He wrote no books. He died young. He was buried in a borrowed grave. You'd think he'd be quickly forgotten, but no. He's worshipped on every continent. And his sayings have been translated into over 200 languages with painstaking accuracy. [00:12:31] Then there's salvation of the holy whole person. [00:12:36] This is really a uniqueness of Jesus as a spiritual figure. [00:12:43] His emphasis is always on the well being of the whole person. [00:12:51] Let me illustrate this. [00:12:52] If I become a Muslim, my religion will promise me to make things right with Allah, but will offer me no help with relationships with my self or with other people, or with creation as a whole. [00:13:12] If I become a pantheist, which you know, God is in everything, I'll get right with nature but ignore my relationship with God and with other people. [00:13:29] If I'm a Hindu, through diet and meditation I will achieve a relationship with myself, but have nothing in terms of relationship with God or other people or creation. [00:13:43] In Christ, however, I receive a relationship that is based upon his atoning sacrifice upon the cross that leads me and that leads you, if you are one of his followers, to care about our neighbor and to care about all creation. It's all there together. The epitome of God's two commandments. To love God and to love our fellow man. There's a cross in there, isn't there? [00:14:12] Love for God and love for my neighbor. No one cares for you or me like Jesus Christ. [00:14:24] And then there's his incarnation, you know, his coming to earth in the flesh. [00:14:34] That's what incarnation means. [00:14:36] There's a story about a young student at the university who had kind of a wild dream. He'd fallen into a pit in this dream. And in this dream he says, I wanted to get out, but I was too deep down in that hole and entirely too weak to climb out. [00:14:54] Confucius came and looked in. [00:14:57] You're in a deep pit, he said. You should be more careful. [00:15:02] And if you ever get out, I will teach you wisdom. [00:15:08] Well, next Buddha looked in. [00:15:11] He said, quit struggling, my son. There's peace in the pit. Just meditate upon my words. [00:15:19] And then Moses came to visit. [00:15:23] Moses gave me 10 rules and told me to build my life upon them. [00:15:31] And in his dream then Jesus came. [00:15:37] Jesus looked down into the pit, that deep, dark pit, saw me. He didn't say a word. He simply climbed down into the pit, hugged me and carried me out on his back. [00:15:52] And this student proceeded to say, such is the love of Jesus. [00:15:58] He comes among us. [00:16:00] He feeds us. [00:16:03] He heals us. [00:16:05] He numbers the hairs on our head. He calls us by name. He dies in our place. [00:16:12] And if all that weren't enough, he bids us, cast all your cares upon me because I care for you. [00:16:26] Then there's his miracles, the final distinctive that I'll bring up. Although we could spend a whole day, or maybe a whole lifetime talking about the distinctives of Jesus Christ. But in his miracles, what did he do? [00:16:42] We might even ask it this way. What didn't he do? [00:16:45] He turned water into wine. He healed the lame. [00:16:49] He healed the blind and the possessed and the mute and the deaf. He calmed storms. He multiplied five loaves and two fish into a meal. For thousands, he raised the dead. [00:17:00] He even rose from the dead. [00:17:05] All of which leads me to the conclusion that almost 2,000 years ago, a man was born contrary to the laws of nature. [00:17:17] Virgin birth. [00:17:19] He was poor. [00:17:20] He was obscure, never traveled extensively. He only stepped outside the boundaries of Israel a couple of times. He possessed neither wealth nor influence. [00:17:31] In infancy, he startled King Herod. [00:17:35] In childhood, he puzzled scholars with his wisdom. [00:17:40] In adulthood, he ruled nature by walking upon the sea, hushing the storms. [00:17:46] He never wrote anything down. [00:17:50] And yet the libraries of the world bulge with the volumes that are written about him. [00:17:57] He never wrote a song, never painted a picture, never sculpted a bust. And yet he's furnished the theme for more art than all others combined. [00:18:12] He never started a university. And yet all the colleges of the world cannot boast of having as many disciples. [00:18:19] He never commanded an army. He never fired a gun. He never drafted a soldier. He never ran for political office. Yet no officer or king ever had more volunteers willing to march into every village valley of human need to begin such things as orphanages and schools and hospitals. [00:18:49] Never such group of volunteers willing to right wrongs or to institute justice. [00:18:59] And here's another thing I think we so easily overlook, that every Lord's day, even in our culture today, many, if not most, of the wheels of commerce cease their churning, and people assemble in churches worldwide to worship him as savior and Lord. [00:19:21] You know, as we live in our workaday world and entertainment and all the names of athletes, senators and artists and emperors and soldiers, actors, well, those names have come and gone and will continue to come and go. [00:19:43] But the name of this person, Jesus, well, it grows over time, through nearly 2,000 years from his birth. [00:20:02] He's still alive. [00:20:04] He is alive. [00:20:06] Herod could not kill him. Satan could not seduce him. Death could not destroy him. The grave could not hold him. He stands forth upon the earth as God's incarnate, the King of glory, Jesus Christ, Savior, Lord. [00:20:28] He's proclaimed by prophets, he's heralded by angels, he's worshiped by saints, he's feared by devils. [00:20:36] And in Peter's own words, the Christ, the Son of the living God. [00:20:52] And so today's gospel lesson, if you're listening, it's actually Jesus asking you, Pudu. [00:21:09] You, you, you. [00:21:19] Who do you say that I am?