Sermon 21st September 2014

From now until Advent, adults will ask, and discover answers to, questions on the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

One of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, continues our study - exploring answers to the question:

Did Jesus rise again?

The Bible passage is from Matthew 27: 61 – 28:10

“So they left the tomb in a hurry, afraid and yet filled with joy …”[GNB]/So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy …”[NIVUK]

1.              This morning is the third week in our autumn sermon series that tracks the themes which are typically the topics of examination by groups following the Alpha Course – people who are engaging in an examination of what they believe, why and to what purpose – and in particular what they believe about Jesus, why they believe it and what difference it makes in their lives. 

                  I am anxious to emphasise this setting at the outset – this context of an invitation to examine your faith, my faith.  Had we the usual Alpha course arrangements, this would be more obvious – the gathering together, the talk and then the opportunity to converse and to explore what has been said, to agree, to disagree, to resolve to think further.  In those circumstances it is clearer that Alpha is a chance to review, to question, to build or to rebuild your own understanding of Christian faith and of your own faith.  Alpha groups typically contain a range of understandings from on the one hand those who regard themselves as enthusiastic Christians, to died-in-the-wool agnostic, even atheists on the other.  Since we all have our reasons for being here, that is likely to be reflected here this morning.   

My point – perhaps over laboured – is that the explanations of belief that we relate in these weeks are not intended as spoon-fed dogma, to be written down in the exercise book of life and then lost;  they are intended to provoke – and even if rejected – to encourage you to engage, to assess and respond to them. 

2.              “Did Jesus rise again?”  That’s the question posed this morning.  It is a question to which the vast majority of Christians would be expected to give a resounding “yes!”  Faith in the resurrected Jesus is a central element of our faith – of our creed:  “he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again”.

                  Yet from where does this confidence come from – that allows us to respond with gusto to the Easter greeting, “Alleluia. Christ is risen” with our “He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.”  After all we were not there;  we were not with the Marys at the tomb on that first Easter, we were not in the Upper Room when Jesus came to his followers, we were not in Jerusalem between Easter and the ascension.  Our confidence must draw on be something other than our own first-hand account of our experience?

                  In what follows, I am going to mention the 3 grounds on which, in one combination or another, it is likely that we base our personal confidence in the resurrection.  As I do so I am going to pepper the account with the words of those who were around at the relevant time.

3.              Peter spoke to the crowds following the hearing at the Beautiful Gate:  “You disowned the Holy and Righteous One … . ¹⁵ You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. […]When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”  And Peter told the Sanhedrin after his arrest:  “³⁰ The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead – whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. ³¹ God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. ³² We are witnesses of these things, …”

                  The first ground for confidence in the resurrection is the evidence of witnesses who saw the risen Christ.  We have the direct words of only a few of them – like Peter;  but we have descriptions of other times when Jesus met his followers – in the Upper Room, with Thomas, by the lake side and on the road to Emmaus.  We are told there were other occasions and Paul, writing only a little later, and himself claiming to be one to whom Jesus had appeared “abnormally late”, tells his readers that there were more than 500 people to whom Jesus showed himself in this period (see 1 Cor 15; 3-5).

                  You may want to argue about how historical the whole account of Jesus’ life is anyway and therefore what reliance can be placed on these reported words.  If so, I aim you at Cameron or at least his first sermon in this series as he touched on the evidence for an historical Jesus.  My own response is less learned and, I like to think, more cuddly:  we all love the Peter of the gospels, don’t we – the emotional, the do-er, the authentic fisherman, who says brave things and then, like us, fails?  We identify with this character.  OK good:  so I ask, if that is the case, why not give some time to the post-resurrection Peter?  The man who stands and bellows out his experience of the resurrection?

                  There are alternatives:  this may be propaganda.  If that is what you fear, then read the gospels, Acts and Peter’s letters again.  If you are right, then it is brilliant propaganda, fantastically organised, especially for its period.  An alternative is that the evidence, albeit of a miracle, is persuasive?

4.              Paul spoke to the scholars in Athens:  “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”  And we are told:  “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’”

                  Wherever you stand on the Christian-Atheist dimension at some stage you will surely have joined these scholars and taken a similarly sceptical view on this or some other matter of faith.  One thing we often do is to put forward other explanations that fit the facts.  There are hundreds of explanations out there which may explain the empty tomb – ranging from those critics that pick up on the differences of detail in the gospel stories to those that create whole new story lines to explain why the tomb was empty for a reason other than a miracle.

There is not time now to perform a post-mortem on the gospel accounts (though some will have done so for A-level?) to try to persuade you that together, while there are differences in the details, there are lots of reasons to believe the very simple story they tell of the burial of the body and of the empty tomb;  that there are very few reasons to disbelieve them.  If interested I can refer you to sources to follow the debate more closely (eg the Reasonable Faith website).  One general point links back to the previous ground – having faith in the tellers:  if determined propaganda is it not odd that the inconsistencies arise and is it not odder that such emphasis should be placed in a story of the crescendo of which paints the hero as a villain being executed?

In any event my second ground for believing in the resurrection is the happening of the empty tomb.

5.              Paul wrote this in the letter we call his letter to the church in Rome: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

                  A new life.   For us. The resurrection Paul says was not a magic trick.  It was not even simply a demonstration that God was bigger than the baddy, death.  It was not an episode from a comic book.  It was done to bring us the capacity for life.

                  And this is my last ground for believing that Jesus was raised from the dead.  I was not there on that day and no more than I saw the ministry in Judea or the death on Golgotha, I cannot say that I saw the risen Christ.  But my experience of the love of God, the empowerment to live for Him convinces me that He was not only capable of raising Jesus but did so. 

But I may be crazy – why believe my 3-second unscientific testimony?  You have a point! Think then that this testimony reflects the experience of many others here this morning, many who have sat in this church in days past and millions of others who have gone before.  Think of the experience of the church over the centuries.  Yes be critical – I know you well enough to know you will – but consider too in this context its strengths, its achievements - driven by a common understanding of the power of God in the Risen Jesus.

                  Our experience is the third ground for belief.

6.              “Afraid and yet filled with joy”.  We learn from Matthew that the women who had found the empty tomb and learned of Jesus’ having been raised from death, left the site with mixed emotions.  I invite you to revisit your understanding of the power of God in the resurrection and be prepared for a similar response.

Sermon 14th September 2014

From now until Advent, adults will ask, and discover answers to, questions on the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Our Honorary Assistant Minister, Gill Tayleur, continues our study - exploring answers to the question, 

WHY DID JESUS DIE?

What do Rhianna, David Beckham, and the Pope have in common? One answer is they all wear a cross. Many people go around with a cross on their earring, necklace or even a tattoo, some of us here this morning are wearing one. We’re so used to seeing it we barely notice it – but we might notice it and be shocked if we saw someone wearing a gallows or an electric chair around their neck, and the cross was just as much a form of execution. Indeed it was one of the cruellest and most painful forms of execution and even the Romans abolished it eventually in AD337 because it was considered too inhumane.

Yet the cross has always been regarded as the symbol of the Christian faith. Christians say it’s precious and central to their faith. Many chapters of the gospels are about the death of Jesus, and much of the rest of the New Testament is about the meaning of the cross, explaining why Jesus died. Most leaders who have had widespread influence on their country or the world are remembered for the impact of their lives, but Jesus is remembered for his death even more than his life.

Why? Why this focus on the death of Jesus?

Because the death of Jesus was God’s solution – a mega drastic solution – the most terrible & far reaching problem. What’s the problem? Well, we may say, “I have no need for Christianity, no need for God. I’m quite happy, my life is full, I try to be nice to other people and lead a good life. That’s enough.” Well, according to the Bible, every human being is created in the image of God, in some way like God & able to relate to him, and so there’s something good and of infinite value about every person. We know this is true; & we recognise it with our modern understanding of human dignity and human rights.

But there’s a flip side to the coin. We’re not entirely good are we, we’re a mix of good and bad, we’re flawed. Certainly speaking for myself, there are things I do that I know are wrong –there are things I wish I’d never said or done, I let people down, I make mistakes and failures, choose the easy or selfish option, over and over again. The Bible calls it sin – an unpopular word but one that describes this living for self.

We all do it. But we like to make excuses –  every day we do so, and we like to think we’re good at it. Here are some real excuses given on insurance claims for car accidents:

·      Leaving home for work, I drove out of my drive and straight into a bus; the bus was five minutes early.

·      The accident occurred when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle.

·      I don't know who was to blame for the accident; I wasn't looking.

·      I had one eye on a parked car, another on approaching lorries, and another on the woman behind.

·      I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought.

·      No one was to blame for the accident but it would never have happened if the other driver had been alert.

·       

Great excuses! (or not)

With our shortcomings or sin, we attempt to excuse ourselves with “It’s only human!” Or “I was provoked!” Or perhaps most of all, “I’m not that bad; I’m not a drug pusher or armed robber or child abuser.” There’s always someone worse than me. But relative to God’s standards, and relative to the perfect life of love and goodness that Jesus led, we ALL fall a long way short. A person standing at the bottom of the world’s deepest mine, and one on top of the world’s tallest mountain, are both equally far off when trying to touch the stars!

We’ve just heard in our Bible reading, “Everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.” That’s the problem. We have all sinned or done wrong. Well, you might think, “If everyone is in the same boat, is it really a big problem? Does it really matter?”

Yes it does matter because sin has consequences, and they are dire!

First consequence is the pollution of sin. Jesus said the root of our problem is what we’re like on the inside, not the outside. He said, “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” These things pollute our lives. Like me, you may think, “I don’t do most of those things.” But even one of them can mess up or pollute us. You can’t have a fairly clean driving licence; either it is clean or it’s not. One offence and your licence stops it being clean. And it’s the same with us: one offence makes our lives unclean too.

Which brings us to the second consequence, namely the power of sin. The things we do wrong often have an addictive power over us. It’s easy to see that in some sorts of wrong-doing, like with alcohol, shoplifting or taking drugs. But lying, a bad temper or greed can equally get a grip on our lives, that we can’t break free from, however hard we try. Maybe there’s something in our lives we’ve tried to stop but we just can’t crack it. It’s too powerful.

The third consequence of sin is its penalty. There’s something in human nature that cries out for justice. We see what happened to vulnerable children and young people in Rotherham and we want justice brought to book. We hear about torture and beheadings in the Middle East, and again we cry out for such horrors to be stopped and justice done.

Closer to home, today is Racial Justice Sunday, the day on which we remember and pray for those who suffer injustice because of their racial background, and for the end to such injustice. We consider how we can be part of the solution, and our role in promoting racial justice ourselves, near and far.

Caring about injustice is obviously a good thing! We’re right in wanting wrong-doing to be punished and people who do such things not to get away with it. But it’s not just other people’s sins that deserve punishment, it’s ours too. One day we’ll all have to face the judgement of God. And St Paul says “the wages of sin is death.”

So there’s the pollution of sin, the power of sin, the penalty of sin. Very neatly there’s another P: the partition of sin. Maybe the word separation is better! The things we do that are wrong, create a separation or a barrier between us and God. Sometimes because we’re living life our own way with no thought of God, sometimes more deliberately keeping him out. You know how when things aren’t right between you and a friend, if one of you has let the other down or hurt them, you can’t look each other in the eye? It’s a bit like that between us and God but so much worse. Our sin or wrong doing creates a distance or barrier between us.

So we all need to face the problem of sin in our lives. The greater our understanding of our problem and of our need, the better we’ll appreciate the solution of Jesus’ death on the cross. Yes the amazing wonderful Good News of Christianity is that God loves us so much he did not leave us in the ghastly mess we make of our lives. In the person of his Son, Jesus, God came to earth to die instead of us; that is he died in our place. The apostle Peter said about Jesus, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross”.

Jesus died for our sins, died in our place, he endured crucifixion for us. It was an agonising death, preceded by harsh flogging with leather thongs that had sharp metal bits in them that ripped off the flesh and tore deep inside the body. Then six inch nails driven into Jesus’ wrists and ankles, and then hanging from them until death by asphyxiation. Jesus suffered terrible physical pain on the cross, but even worse than that, and worse than the emotional pain of being rejected by the world and even his friends, there was the spiritual agony of being cut off from his Father God as he carried our sins.In this way Jesus died for our sins, for yours and mine, individually and personally, as well as globally and for all time.

This understanding of the cross as the place where the consequences of our wrong-doing were dealt with, this solution to the desperate problem of sin, can be seen and understood from different perspectives. There are at least 4 different pictures the New Testament uses to describe what Jesus did on the cross and its results, each of them taken from everyday life in those days.

The first picture comes from the temple, where sacrifices took place. In the Old Testament,

very careful laws were laid down as to how sins should be dealt with. A person would take an animal, one as near to perfection as possible. The person would lay their hands on the animal and confess their sins, and the sins were understood to have passed from the person

to the animal which was then killed. The New Testament writer to the Hebrews points out that it is “impossible for the blood of bulls & goats to take away sins”. Animal sacrifice was only a shadow or preparation for the reality of the sacrifice of Jesus. Only the death of Jesus our substitute, can take away our sin. He alone was the perfect sacrifice because he alone lived a perfect life.

The second picture comes from the market place. Debt isn’t a modern day problem; it was a problem in the ancient world as well. If someone had very serious debts, they might be forced to sell themselves into slavery in order to pay off their debts. Suppose someone was standing in the market place, offering themselves as a slave. A wealthy customer might have pity on them and ask, how much do you owe? To which the reply might be 10,000. Suppose the customer offers to pay the 10,000 and then, rather than taking him home as their slave, lets him go free?! In doing so, he would be redeeming the slave, paying for his freedom, buying his freedom. The New Testament says Jesus redeemed us by his death, setting us free from the slavery or power of sin. This is real freedom! It’s not that we never sin again, and breaking free can be a continual struggle, but because of Jesus’ death, sin’s power or hold over us is broken, and we can recognise it and fight it.

The third picture comes from the law court. The apostle Paul says through Christ’s death “we have been justified”. Justification is a legal term – if you went to court and were found innocent, you were justified. There is a story of 2 boys who were great friends when they were growing up, but drifted apart when they grew up and got jobs in different towns. Life went on and eventually they lost touch. One went on to become a judge, the other went down and down and ended up a criminal, in court before that judge. What a dilemma for him – he couldn’t let the man off, justice had to be done. But he really didn’t want to punish him because he loved him. So he told his friend he would fine him the correct penalty for the offence; that is justice. But then he came down from his position as judge and wrote a cheque for the fine himself; that is love.

That’s a picture of what God has done for us. In his justice he knows we are guilty, but in his love he came down in the person of Jesus and paid the penalty for us. Of course, the illustration breaks down, because God’s love is far greater than just a friend, the offence is far greater than deserving just a fine, and the cost is far higher than writing a cheque—it cost Jesus his very life on the cross. But the picture is that the penalty has been paid, and therefore it’s possible for us to be completely forgiven.

The last picture of what Jesus’ death on the cross means, comes from the home. We’ve already said that one of the consequences of sin is a broken relationship with God, a separation from him. The result of the cross is the possibility of a restored relationship with God. The separation of sin has been destroyed. The experience of the so called prodigal son can happen to us. We can come back to God the Father and experience his love and acceptance for ourselves. This relationship isn’t just for now, it’s for all eternity. One day we’ll be with Father God in a heaven and earth made new, and there we will be free, free from the penalty of sin, the power, pollution and partition of sin. That’s what God has made possible through the cross.

All this because of Jesus death on the cross?! Ultimately it is a mystery, it’s something too profound for complete understanding. But the New Testament writers consistently describe it as an act of the greatest, deepest, sacrificial love, God’s love for humanity as a whole and for each one of us. Jesus himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends.”

You may have heard the story of Francis Gajowniczek, a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp in July 1941. One day the sirens announced the escape of a prisoner, and as a reprisal ten prisoners would die, a long slow starvation, buried alive in a purpose built concrete bunker. All day, tortured by heat-stroke, hunger and fear, the men waited as the SS Commandant walked between the lines of men, to select, quite randomly, ten of them.As the commandant pointed to one man, Francis Gajowniczek, he cried out in despair what would happen to his poor wife and children? At that moment another man stepped forward and said: “I am a Catholic priest and I want to die for that man. He has a wife and children, I have no one.” said Father Maximillian Kolbe. That night, nine men and the priest went to the starvation bunker. Normally they would tear each other apart like cannibals, but not this time. While they had strength, they prayed and sang psalms. After two weeks, three of the men and Father Maximillian were still alive. The bunker was required for others, so on 14^th August the remaining four were killed by lethal injection. Francis Gajowniczek  survived the war, and spent the rest of his life going round telling people what Father Maximillian had done for him, dying in his place. There’s even tribute to him in Westminster Abbey. Jesus’ death was even more amazing, because it was not just for one man, but for every single person in the world.

...............

Let’s believe it! Let’s accept God’s love and forgiveness shown at the cross of Jesus. You know your life – the good the bad and the ugly, the delights, the disappointments, the failings and the mess. In response to God’s love seen at the cross, let us come to Him humbly asking for his love and forgiveness to restore our relationship, and then live in the light of it. And now let’s pray...

Sermon 7th September 2014

From now until Advent, adults will ask, and discover answers to, questions on the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, begins this new study - exploring answers to the question, 

WHO IS JESUS?

(The reading is from Matthew 16: verses 13-18)

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in a different village, where he worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was thirty. Then, for 3 years, he was a travelling preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family, or owned a house. He didn’t go to university. He never visited what we would call a big city. He never travelled more than 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that we usually associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothes, which was the only property he had on earth. When he was dead he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

20 centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race, and the leader of human progress. All the armies that have ever marched; all the navies that have ever sailed; all the parliaments that have ever sat; all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of people on this earth as much as that ONE SOLITARY LIFE.

That anonymous piece of prose says it all, so very well. No-one who looks at the world today can deny the impact that Jesus of Nazareth has had on it. Look at our own country. It’s not just that our towns, cities and villages are full of churches built in his honour. It’s also that the whole fabric of our society has been affected by him. Many of our schools and hospitals were started by his church as way of serving him – like the school in our own parish, for example. Much of the law in our country was framed as an attempt to give expression to his teaching. It’s true to say that so much of what we take for granted today only exists because a man named Jesus was born in Bethlehem 2 000 years ago.

But why has he had such an impact? The simple answer is that it’s because of who he is. It’s the nature, the character of the man that has given him such impact on our world.

So who is he? That’s the question we’re looking at today, as adult begin this autumn series: who is Jesus? Between now and the end of November we’ll be examining some of the key fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith. We’ll be thinking about what Christians believe; about why we believe it; and about what that means for how we live each day. Or maybe I should say we’ll be re-examining it. We have done this here before, pretty much in this exact form, based on the world-famous Alpha course – though it was all of seven years ago now.

Of course we have kept on teaching, and examining, what Christians believe and why since then too; and we won’t stop doing that! But now seems like a particularly good time to focus on it this very specifically – because of the insert in today’s service sheet. Those who were around earlier this year will have heard me say that all churches in this Diocese have been invited to produce a Mission Action Plan; and here ours is! It’s been a very useful process for us to think quite deliberately about what we are, and have been, doing, across this parish. It’s also helped us to be clear in explaining how, and why, we have got to where we have; and then in defining where we’ll go from here in God’s name too. And that obviously makes this document a vitally important one for this church.

Hopefully it’ll make sense as it stands when you read it – as we very much hope you will do. But if you want to know more of the background work that’s been done over many years to get us here, there’s an annex detailing that. It’s on paper at the back of church, and is also available on our website. And here is a promise of the same happening very soon with the Discovery Report that underpins what will be a major strand of this Mission Action Plan in the years to come. That appears in headline form under the Priority Actions section on the document, and is the one part of it that is going to take significant numbers of us to make real. If we do want, as the Report recommends, to be God’s blessing to this community, then that will take more than just a few of us just chipping in just occasionally. It will need lots of time, energy, effort, and commitment, from lots of people putting their faith into practical action in a whole range of ways. 

The exact detail of that has yet to be worked out; but the work has already begun, with the Milkwood summer programme – and there’s an autumn feast in the offing too. So what the preaching group thought was that as we head off along this road we could do with reminding ourselves of what – or, rather, who – this is all about. So this is where we’ll begin, today; with the issue of who Jesus was and is. That question is absolutely foundational to the rest of this series – and to this process. Our parish Aim, we say ‘is, in God’s strength, to bring Jesus to the centre of our lives and to the heart of our community’. So, who is Jesus? Well he’s many things to many people. Ask anyone you know who they think Jesus is, and they’ll almost certainly have some kind of answer. Their answer may surprise you, so why not ask your friends and family, and hear what they have to say. Some years ago there was song that put many of the usual answers about Jesus’ identity to music. I won’t sing it, but here are the lyrics:

Some say he was an outlaw,

that he roamed across the land

with a band of unschooled ruffians

and a few old fishermen.

No-one knew just where he came from,

nor exactly what he’d done,

but they said it must be something bad

that kept him on the run.

Some say he was a poet, that he’d stand upon a hill,

that his words could calm an angry crowd

or make the waves stand still,

that he spoke in many parables

that few could understand

but the people sat for hours just to listen to this man.

Some say he was a sorcerer, a man of mystery

that he walked upon the water

that he made a blind man see.

That he conjured wine at weddings,

did tricks with fish and bread,

that he made the lame to walk again,

and raised people from the dead.

Some say a politician, who spoke of being free,

he was followed by the masses on the shores of Galilee.

He spoke out against corruption and bowed to no decree,

but they feared his strength and power,

so they nailed him to a tree.

Yes Jesus is many things to many people. But more often than not, Jesus is what people want him to be. They have some cause or concern that they champion. Then they paint a particular picture of Jesus, so that they can recruit him to their cause. But as we’ll see that really won’t do ...

Now to some people of course, Jesus is the stuff of fairy tales. He has no more basis in fact than the tooth-fairy, and faith in him is just a blind leap in the dark. I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating. It’s the one about a missionary running an orphanage in the Middle East. She was driving a jeep that ran out of petrol not far from town. She had no jerry-can and all she could find was potty. So she walked to the nearest petrol station, and filled it with fuel. As was pouring it into the tank, a smart 4x4 occupied by wealthy oil sheikhs drew up. They were truly fascinated by seeing the contents of the potty going into the jeep. One opened his window and said, “Excuse me! My friend and I, although we do not share your religion, we greatly admire your faith.”

And to some people believing in Jesus is like that. It’s a blind leap in the dark that has no basis in fact or reason or history: faith and fact are quite separate. To such people, faith is, as a little boy once put it, ‘believing things that you know aren’t true.’ So, some people reject belief in Jesus because to them it’s as irrational as believing that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden. Other people want to hold on to Jesus. But they want to have him on their own terms, to make him into what they want him to be.

But neither of those approaches will do, because they ignore what is critical. What’s critical is that faith in Jesus can – and must – be based on solid, historical fact. We need not doubt Jesus’ existence: there is far more historical evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for the existence of Julius Caesar, for example! Jesus is mentioned by the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and by the Jewish historian, Josephus. But our primary source of evidence about Jesus is in the pages of the New Testament. And it’s important for us to remember that the New Testament isn’t a collection of fairy tales. No, it’s solid, sober, well-documented history. The gospels were written either by people who knew Jesus themselves, or by those who talked closely to eyewitnesses. So we can rely on the picture of Jesus that the New Testament gives us. And it’s the picture that the New Testament gives us – rather than our own fads and foibles that must decide the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’.

It’s that question which is asked time and time again in the gospels. ‘Who is this man?’ is the question that puzzled Jesus’ disciples and opponents alike. And it’s that question which is at the heart of today’s short Bible passage. In it, Jesus first asked his disciple how other people answered it. And they came out with whole catalogue of views: ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah, or some other prophet.’ His disciples framed their replies in the religious language of their day. But it’s not far from people today who label Jesus as revolutionary, or a pacifist, or their favourite guru.

But Jesus then took the question and made it personal: “What about you? Who do you say I am?” I stopped reading at that point; but there was an answer given. It was Simon Peter, who replied. He’s most notable in the gospels for getting things wrong, but he got this one right: “You are the Messiah (GNB)/Christ (NIV), the Son of the living God.” We know he got it right because of Jesus’ reply: “Good for you Simon son of John! This truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven.”

And, interesting as it is to ask what other people think of Jesus, sooner or later each of us must answer this key question for ourselves. So it is as if Jesus turns to each one of us today, and says to us: ‘What about you? Who do you say I am?’

Who do you think Jesus is, then? And, if he is who Peter said he is, then what does that mean for you; and what will he want from you? It’s those critical questions that we all have to answer for ourselves at some point in our lives. And it’s those critical questions which this series can, and will, help us to ponder – and to answer – over these next 3 months. So now let’s pray that we will do just that, then ...