Wednesday - Change It - The Night That Changed The Religious
We saw yesterday how the religious experts who read prophecy day in day out, still got it wrong when it came to Jesus. They missed that one of the ancient prophecies about the Messiah was happening before their eyes.
So what did they miss? They missed grace and hope.
Religion at its worst can be about building a ladder to heaven, trying to make ourselves acceptable to God under our own power.
But what Christmas means is that God has come to us. No ladder required.
Two weeks ago, we contrasted grace and law as part of our Becoming Like Family series.
Grace means we have hope. It’s not primarily about what we do for God, it’s about what God has done for us, and everything we do is a way to say thanks.
The problem is if you’ve invested a great deal in self-help, you may not recognize or accept true help when it comes. You can be so sure of your hard work that you brush off help saying “I’ve got this!” when you really don’t.
Who would have expected God to come as a baby, much less a homeless baby born in questionable circumstances, with the most common name at that time, Jesus?
But people didn’t just call him Jesus, he called himself God, and others came to do this as well.
Yes, Jesus claimed to be god. That is a claim that no other leader of a major world religion has made.
Jesus didn’t go around standing on street corners shouting “I am God” in language that plain and simple, but when you look at what he taught and claimed, he was conscious of, and claiming to be God in some more subtle ways.
And he was subtle for good reasons. In the culture of his day, saying he was God would have been considered blasphemy – a crime punishable by death.
So he showed it in all sorts of interesting ways:
He spoke of himself using “I AM” sayings – a deliberate hint to the Jewish name of God – Yahweh, which means “I am”. He also said,
he was one with the Father
he was the Son of God.
he had the power to forgive sins
he was greater than the temple – the most important place of worship for the Jews and God’s presence on earth
In the gospel of Mark, Jesus is asked directly by some religious leaders “Are you the Christ (anointed one), the Son of the Blessed One ?” Jesus said “I am …”
Jesus was making an incredible and dangerous claim to be God incarnate—which means God in the flesh
One of the central truths of Jesus’ religious context was that there is only one God. When Jesus started to talk in this way, it was dangerous, but it was also life changing. He wasn’t claiming to be a new God, a second God, even a demigod. He was claiming to be the God, their God – the God who created, and then stayed with the Israelites through their history, there with them in an entirely new way.
Question: Do you know people who change when their boss, or parents, or another authority figure enters the room? How would the world change when God entered the room?
Reminder: We have a great Christmas event coming December 14th, 2013: The Original Christmas Party. Hope you’re coming!
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We're looking at the final section of the Sermon on the Mount this week:
"When Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes." (Matthew 7:28-29 ESV)
Jesus' teaching is widely thought of as being the greatest and most original human teaching to have ever existed. No one is quoted more than Jesus. Many people, even those who are not Christians, have the greatest respect for Jesus and try to live by his teachings.
A friend of mine once proudly quoted to me: “Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand’” I had the joy of telling him that Lincoln was actually quoting Jesus!
When I began a Masters degree – I read through the grading structure – what constitutes an A, B, C, etc. Description of an A+ was "Profound and Creative - Strong evidence of original thought." This is a rare thing indeed – someone who can come up with completely original ideas, rather that simply quoting, or worse, stealing the work of others.
Jesus dared to do this - in the Sermon on the Mount, he regularly started with, "I say to you." or "I tell you." Whenever he says “they say” and quotes another religious teacher, he is about to say they’re wrong!
He was acting as if he could just say these things under his own authority, as if he was the source of all wisdom, knowledge and morality. Because he was! But they didn't know that yet.
Question: Reflect on all that Jesus has been teaching and what we have studied in the Sermon on the Mount through the last several months. What has amazed you about his teaching? What has confused you?
