Weigh up Jesus

Just imagine if I, a relative ‘nobody’, started to get a lot of public attention because of the things I was saying and a number of inexplicable signs and wonders I was performing; things which were engaging the lower classes of society in a way that those in authority were failing to do; authorities that is in terms of local and wider government and more especially the religious hierarchy, which until now had held sway over what was a religious nation.

Now, what if I started to go further and began to make more and more bold claims about myself using those signs and wonders to support what I was saying. To put the tin lid on it, what if the culmination of these words and actions led people to conclude that I was claiming to be equal to God and, when I was challenged about this, I declined to deny it.

If the above were the case, then you would have to make a judgement call about me and who I really am, because the implication of my words are that you would be answerable to me in all matters of your life.

However, I am a relative nobody and I’m making no bold statements about myself. On the other hand, Jesus does just that very thing and so you and I have no option but to weigh him up. The author C.S. Lewis did this and concluded that there are three possible answers that we can come to i.e. Jesus was mad, Jesus was bad or he was God. Indeed, at one point, Jesus’ own family reckoned he was out of his mind, whilst the religious leaders went as far as saying that he was in league with the devil himself (the Gospel of Mark chapter 3).

In 2024 you will doubtless make judgement calls about people who will impact your life and these will include the person of Jesus. In the country of Israel, 2000 years ago, the ‘somebodies of the day’ took the view that it was more expedient that Jesus was put out of the way for good. God, however, had different plans.

Jesus once asked his followers, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ What say you…?