The Real Jesus

Scripture:  Matthew 17:1-9

While I have never been, I understand that Iceland has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.  With black sand beaches, grand glaciers, and waterfall laden highlands there is a lot to see.   For this reason, there are all kinds of travel companies that will offer excursions, outings, and bus tours of the best sites to see.   In 2012 though one of these tour groups experienced a scare.  The tour bus had stopped in a wilderness area in Southern Iceland to allow the tourists to see the country’s natural beauty.  As people returned to the bus and it was getting set to leave, some of the passengers reported that a woman was missing.  The tour organizer called the local authorities to report the missing person.   Law enforcement officers were dispatched.  A search and rescue helicopter was readied, but deployment was delayed due to weather.  The local police led volunteers of tourists in search parties and fanned out to look for the missing woman.  After several hours the search was quietly called off when it was realized that the missing woman was part of the search party looking for herself. 

If you look up articles on this event, most of them will poke light fun at the woman for failing to realize it was about herself, but the description of the missing woman was incredibly vague and could fit literally any bilingual Asian woman.  If there is any fault to be assigned for this mishap it would be the American tourists who reported her missing.  At the stop the woman had changed clothes, and when she boarded the bus, she sat in a different seat.  The American tourists who reported the woman missing, were unable to recognize her because she changed clothes, and then a headcount error caused the situation to spiral into an hours long search for a woman who was not even missing.  

 People spent hours searching for a person who was right there with there in front of them.  It is a funny story, but it echoes what can be a common faith experience.  Over the years people have sought Jesus, but they often miss him when he is right in front of them.   Throughout Church history, Christians have struggled with understanding who Jesus is.   He is a historical person who we can read about, but Jesus is also the Word of God through which all things have been made. Jesus is the son of God born into the world like anyone else, yet Jesus is also fully God-united with the Father and the Spirit in perfect Trinity.

 Throughout the years biblical scholars, theologians, and individual believers  have sought to find the real Jesus.  Like the woman from the Iceland tour group, what happens is people end up missing Jesus is in their midst, because instead they are looking for a form they are comfortable with.  One of the things we should be cautious of in our faith is that we craft a savior who fits our wants instead of seeking to know Jesus for who Jesus is.  This morning’s scripture can help us guard against that pitfall, because in this morning’s scripture we get a glimpse of Jesus as he truly is, the glorified son of God. 

 This morning’s scripture captures an event commonly referred to as the transfiguration because Jesus is transformed before the disciples and it is a story that appears in three of the four gospels.    While it is not named, biblical scholars often identified the mountain this took place on as Mount Hermon.  This is the highest mountain in the region of Galilee, and the top is often capped with snow.  This is a fairly isolated placed, and Jesus did not bring all his disciples but only his three closest: Peter, James, and John.  It is in this isolated place with the people he trusts the most that the glory of Jesus is revealed.   Jesus meets with Moses, the keeper of the covenant that makes God the God of the Israelites and the Israelites the people of God. In this, Jesus is revealed as the fulfillment of the covenant.   It is through him that all people can become God’s people.   While transfigured Jesus meets with Elijah as well.  The prophet Malachi declares that Elijah will come before the day of the Lord.   It is on the mountain while transfigured that Jesus confirms and reveals what Peter had declared in the passage before this morning’s scripture: Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God.   

 Despite this morning’s scripture giving us a glimpse of who Jesus truly is, there are still common viewpoints that seek to see Jesus as something else.   While there are numerous examples of people looking for the real Jesus and not finding him because they are looking for something else, there are a couple of these viewpoints that are more common.   For a couple of hundred years one of the more common ones that comes up time and time again is the quest for the historical Jesus.  The historical Jesus is a vain scholarly quest to isolate Jesus as a first century Jewish man.   The notion of the historical Jesus is one that seeks to define Jesus only by his historical and cultural context.   In essence the historical Jesus uses all the tools that scholars have to completely define the humanity of Jesus. 

One of the earliest and most famous examples of this is the book The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth but it is more commonly called the Jefferson Bible.  U.S. President Thomas Jefferson was not comfortable with the supernatural aspects found in the gospels.   So, he made his own version.  He synergized the gospels into one narrative and cut out the more supernatural aspects that he disagreed with.  He literally did this; he took scissors to his bible and cobbled together his version of the story of Jesus.  Unsurpisingly, this morning’s scripture did not make the cut. 

The third president of the United States was not the only one to do this.  Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s a group of biblical scholars gained some prominence and essentially attempted to do the same thing.  Calling themselves the Jesus Seminar, this group of scholars also sought to create their own version of the gospels that they believed contained the scriptures that represented only the historical Jesus.  Again, it is not surprising that this morning’s scripture did not make the cut.  Even to this day every couple of years a new book or TV special will come out seeking to define the historical Jesus.  For people who take this perspective the historical Jesus was a man who greatly changed the course of history but little else.  

 It does have to be acknowledged that Jesus was a man who lived in first century Israel under Roman rule.   The context of the land, the political climate, and the culture of the time are significant aspects to study to more fully understanding the gospels.  The fatal flaw with the quest for the historical Jesus is that it emphasizes the humanity of Jesus but completely loses the divinity of Jesus.   It is Jesus without the Christ.   Jesus was a man who occupied a certain place in history, but Jesus is also much more than that.  The historical Jesus is a form of Jesus, but it is not the full picture.  A strictly historical Jesus is not the real Jesus. 

The historical Jesus is a version of Jesus mostly encountered in academic or non-church settings, but there is another incomplete representation of Jesus that is common today.  This form of Jesus is humorously brought to light by Will Farrell when he plays NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights.  Towards the beginning of this movie there is a scene where Ricky Bobby leads a prayer with his family, and he stars it by saying, “Dear Tiny infant Jesus.”  Throughout his prayer he elaborates on this, “Dear Tiny Jesus, with your golden fleece diapers” and he ask for a blessing of “baby Jesus powers”.   In the scene his wife interrupts his prayer to point out Jesus did not stay a baby but grew up.   To this Ricky Bobby responds, “I like Christmas Jesus the best.”

While very few people address prayers to “tiny infant Jesus”, there are a lot of people based on how they express their faith like Christmas Jesus the best.  A Christmas Jesus is an adorable version of Jesus that does not challenge us.  A Christmas Jesus is a version of Jesus that is one that is all about giving us stuff to make us happy.   It is a savior that exist solely for our personal pleasure.   This version of Jesus ignores the teachings of Jesus that might make us uncomfortable like loving the least of these, forgiving our enemies, or going and sinning no more.  Christmas Jesus is a heretical view of the Christ that keeps the supernatural power of Jesus but removes everything else. 

These are just a couple of ways that people have sought to find Jesus but missed the real Jesus in front of them.   In this morning’s scripture the three disciples got to see Jesus is in his truest, transfigured form.   However, they also received some instruction on how to ensure they did not lose sight of the real Jesus.   In verse five of this morning’s scripture from a bright cloud the disciples heard the voice of God the Father tell them “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!”  

We are best equipped to find Jesus when we listen to him, because Jesus tells us who he is.   In the gospels he states that he is the bread of life, that he is the living water, that he is the light of the world.   Jesus says he is the good the shepherd, the is the resurrection and the life.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.   When we look beyond the gospels we find descriptions of Jesus that capture as he appeared in all his glory in this morning’s scripture.  He is the prince of peace.   He is the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings.   He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.  He is the Christ, the Messiah, and the son of the one true God.   He is the author and perfecter of our faith.  He is the head of the one true church.   He is the lamb of God, the canceler of sins, and the one who paid our debt.   He is the savior who was and is and is yet to come.   He sits at the right hand of the Father in all honor, glory, and power forever and ever.

The gospels and all the bible tells us who Jesus, the real Jesus is.   If we want to be sure we are following the real Jesus, then, again, the way we do that is to listen to him.   We do what Jesus told us to do.   We love our neighbors as ourselves, we seek first the kingdom of God, we stand up to oppressive power, we reach out to those who have been pushed to the margins, we grant grace and mercy, we forgive, we put others first, and we sacrificially give to meet the needs of the least of these.   We follow Jesus not just on paper, not just in theory, but in daily lives-lived out through our actions.   When we do this then there is no doubt we will find and know the real Jesus, because we will be following in his footsteps.  

  Years ago, a pastor was traveling India and visited the Missionaries of Charity headquarters in Calcutta.  It just so happened that the timing was right and he got to meet the legendary Mother Teresa in person.  This was early in the man’s career, so he asked her “what advice might you have to offer a young preacher?”  She replied, “Preach Jesus, the true Jesus, the real Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, and not the Jesus of people’s imagination.”   May we seek to be followers of Jesus, the real Jesus, the resurrected Jesus.   May we align our hearts not with a version of Jesus that makes a comfortable, but with the son of God, with whom the father is well pleased.   May we listen to him.   May we serve others the way that he served, and may we love others the way that he loves us.   Just like Jesus was transfigured into his full glory in this morning’s scripture, may following Christ transform us so that we can be a shining beacon that shares Jesus, the real Jesus, with our world.