{"id":7132,"date":"2021-09-14T04:58:19","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T11:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=7132"},"modified":"2021-09-14T04:58:20","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T11:58:20","slug":"who-is-he-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=7132","title":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-size:40px\" style=\"color:rgb(0,0,0);\">Who is He, anyway?<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Pentecost-17.pdf\">Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"color:rgb(0,0,0);\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\">\n<meta name=Generator content=\"Microsoft Word 15 (filtered)\">\n<style>\n<!--\n \/* Font Definitions *\/\n @font-face\n\t{font-family:Wingdings;\n\tpanose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}\n@font-face\n\t{font-family:\"Cambria Math\";\n\tpanose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}\n@font-face\n\t{font-family:Calibri;\n\tpanose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}\n@font-face\n\t{font-family:\"Open Sans\";\n\tpanose-1:2 11 6 6 3 5 4 2 2 4;}\n \/* Style Definitions *\/\n p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal\n\t{margin-top:0in;\n\tmargin-right:0in;\n\tmargin-bottom:8.0pt;\n\tmargin-left:0in;\n\tline-height:107%;\n\tfont-size:11.0pt;\n\tfont-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif;}\np.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph\n\t{margin-top:0in;\n\tmargin-right:0in;\n\tmargin-bottom:8.0pt;\n\tmargin-left:.5in;\n\tline-height:107%;\n\tfont-size:11.0pt;\n\tfont-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif;}\np.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst\n\t{margin-top:0in;\n\tmargin-right:0in;\n\tmargin-bottom:0in;\n\tmargin-left:.5in;\n\tline-height:107%;\n\tfont-size:11.0pt;\n\tfont-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif;}\np.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle\n\t{margin-top:0in;\n\tmargin-right:0in;\n\tmargin-bottom:0in;\n\tmargin-left:.5in;\n\tline-height:107%;\n\tfont-size:11.0pt;\n\tfont-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif;}\np.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast\n\t{margin-top:0in;\n\tmargin-right:0in;\n\tmargin-bottom:8.0pt;\n\tmargin-left:.5in;\n\tline-height:107%;\n\tfont-size:11.0pt;\n\tfont-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif;}\n.MsoChpDefault\n\t{font-family:\"Calibri\",sans-serif;}\n.MsoPapDefault\n\t{margin-bottom:8.0pt;\n\tline-height:107%;}\n \/* Page Definitions *\/\n @page WordSection1\n\t{size:8.5in 11.0in;\n\tmargin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}\ndiv.WordSection1\n\t{page:WordSection1;}\n \/* List Definitions *\/\n ol\n\t{margin-bottom:0in;}\nul\n\t{margin-bottom:0in;}\n-->\n<\/style>\n\n<\/head>\n\n<body lang=EN-US style='word-wrap:break-word'>\n\n<div class=WordSection1>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>(John 6:35,\n41-51) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>A sermon\nfor the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>The last\nverse of the text from John 6 today, John 6:51 (35), states: \u201cI am the living\nbread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live\nforever; and the bread which I give for the life of the world is my flesh.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>That\u2019s\ndynamite. That changes everything. He is the living bread and this gives us\nlife. You notice that the beginning of the text takes a different slant: Verse\n41: \u201cThe Jews (the leaders of the Jews), murmured at him, because he said, \u2018I\nam the bread which came down from heaven.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>It goes on:\n\u201cThey said, \u2018Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we\nknow? How does he now say, \u2018I have come down from heaven.\u2019?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>This isn\u2019t\nonly that a prophet is not known in his own country. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>You and I\nknow people from this town (name one or two), who have become famous, and we\nsay, \u201cBut I knew him when he was little. And he walked and talked and ran just\nlike all the rest of us. His parents are so and so, and how can he be anything\ndifferent?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>So, too,\nthe leaders of the Jews think: \u201cIs he not the son of Joseph? We know his father\nand mother. We\u2019ve known him since he was a kid.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>How much do\nwe know about the life of Jesus? I am tempted to give a quiz about the life of\nJesus. What we know? What the sequence is? It\u2019s a big problem. A good example\nof the problem is seen in a book written in 1904 by Albert Schweitzer. The\ntitle is, <i>The Quest of the Historical Jesus<\/i>. Schweitzer looked at the\nprevious 105 years and analyzed eight books on the life of Jesus. He showed\nthat they weren\u2019t lives of Jesus at all. They were simply reflections, like\nreflections in a mirror, of the one who wrote it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>But the\nreal irony of the book is that Schweitzer did the same thing! He wrote what it was\nsupposedly like, and, of course, it was really his view of what Jesus was\nreally like. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>In the last\n250 years there have been thousands of lives of Jesus. People who said, \u201cWe\u2019ll\ndescribe how it really was.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>For\nexample, if you are a scholar in New Testament studies, there are many\nsubdivisions. You concentrate on Paul, or you concentrate on Matthew, or John,\nor the history of interpretation, or there is even a specialty called the\nhistory of the lives of Jesus. In other words, you can spend your whole career\nnot writing a life of Jesus, but analyzing and recording what has been done\nabout this for the last 250 years. It becomes a real question because since\nabout 1770, we\u2019ve adopted the modern way of thinking about history, which is\nexpressed most easily in a phrase by a German named von Ranke, who said, \u201cas it\nreally was.\u201d We think we can find the historical, the biographical \u201cas it\nreally was.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>If we look\nat the records: First of all, we need to remind ourselves that Jesus is unknown\nin world history until about the year 100. The first reference we know of is by\na Roman historian named Suetonius, and he has it wrong. He said there was a\ncertain Chrestos. Then probably about ten years later was someone named Pliny\nthe Younger in the Roman world, or Josephus in the Jewish world, and, of\ncourse, there were more later. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>Jesus is\nalmost unknown except through what we call Gospels. If you look at the Gospels\nthemselves, they don\u2019t match up, even with all their similarities. Every year\nat Lent when we read the Passion story, we use a compilation (the Diatessaron) by\na Greek historian named Tatian, from about 180 A.D. The compilation doesn\u2019t\nwork. It doesn\u2019t put the Gospel records together in any way that is satisfactory.\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>After that,\nwe have those who have said: \u201cThere\u2019s a Jesus of history and a Christ of faith\u201d\n(Martin Kahler, 1892). What we have to do is get back to the simple Jesus. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>There are\nothers who say: \u201cThe real problem is Paul.\u201d There was the simple Jesus, and\nthen Paul complicated things. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>Or we have\nthe Jesus Seminar, a group of modern scholars who have analyzed all this and\nsaid: \u201cWell, he was a wandering preacher and teacher, probably of a certain\ngroup called the Cynics, and that\u2019s who he really was.\u201d Of course, Islam makes\nhim the last of the prophets before Mohammed. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>What are we\ngoing to do? There are simply thousands of these lives, and they are all simply\nreflections of the person who writes them.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>To be sure,\nthis is also true of other historical figures. It\u2019s true of Napolean, or\nLincoln, or Luther, or the like. We are caught up by the idea that if we could\njust get to the historical Jesus, we would really know what to believe. It\ndoesn\u2019t mean that there is not in some basic way a history here. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>But what\nkind of material is this? Already in the Second Century they were aware of how\nto record this. About 140 A. D. a Christian leader in Rome named Papias wrote:\n\u201cWhat\u2019s important is the oral, spoken preaching. But now that those first and second\ngeneration people are gone, we have had to write it down.\u201d It was also said in\nthe middle of the Second Century that the Gospel of Mark was the preaching of\nPeter. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>At the end\nof the Second Century Irenaeus defended the fact that we have four Gospels,\neven though there are at least 100 Gospels floating around.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>What did\nIrenaeus give for the reason that there are these four and not the rest? It was\nbecause of <b>The Message:<\/b> <b>Jesus is Lord!<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst style='text-indent:-.25in'><span\nstyle='font-family:Symbol'>\u00b7<span style='font:7.0pt \"Times New Roman\"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<\/span><\/span><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>1 Cor 12:3: \u201cTherefore\nI want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says\n\u2018Jesus be cursed!\u2019 and no one can say <b>\u2018Jesus is Lord\u2019<\/b> except by the Holy\nspirit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle style='text-indent:-.25in'><span\nstyle='font-family:Symbol'>\u00b7<span style='font:7.0pt \"Times New Roman\"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<\/span><\/span><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>Romans 10:9: \u201c.\n. . because if you confess with your lips that <b>Jesus is Lord<\/b> and believe\nin your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle style='text-indent:-.25in'><span\nstyle='font-family:Symbol'>\u00b7<span style='font:7.0pt \"Times New Roman\"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<\/span><\/span><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>2 Cor 4:5:\u00a0 \u201cFor\nwhat we preach is not ourselves, but <b>Jesus as Lord<\/b>, with ourselves as\nyour servants for Jesus\u2019 sake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle style='text-indent:-.25in'><span\nstyle='font-family:Symbol'>\u00b7<span style='font:7.0pt \"Times New Roman\"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<\/span><\/span><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>Philippians\n2:8-11: \u201cAnd being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient\nunto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has exalted him and bestowed\non him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every name\nshould bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess\nthat <b>Jesus Christ is Lord<\/b>, to the glory of God the Father.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoListParagraphCxSpLast style='text-indent:-.25in'><span\nstyle='font-family:Symbol'>\u00b7<span style='font:7.0pt \"Times New Roman\"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<\/span><\/span><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>1 Cor 8:6: \u201c. .\n. yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for\nwhom we exist, and <b>one Lord, Jesus Christ,<\/b> through whom are all things\nand through whom we exist,\u201d Notice that God the Father and God the Son are in\nexact parallel. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>The Message<\/span><\/b><span\nstyle='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'> you and I also know in the creeds:\nFirst, the Nicene Creed and then what comes later, the Apostles Creed, which\nsay: \u201cBorn of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,\ndied, and was buried. On the third day he arose again and he sits at the right\nhand of the Father.\u201d This is <b>The Message<\/b> that changes everything. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>The\nMessage<\/span><\/b><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'> is not that\nwe can establish history. We could go forever arguing history, but it really\ncomes down to <b>The Message<\/b>. As C.S. Lewis said about all of this: Either\nthis is what it says it is, or it\u2019s crazy. There\u2019s no in between, no saying:\nWe\u2019re going to sort it out; it was really this.\u201d Either it is what it says it\nis, or it\u2019s crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>What is\nthis that changes everything? John 6:51: \u201cI am the living bread which came down\nfrom heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread\nwhich I give for the life of the world is my flesh.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>What is\nthis amazing and great change? It says: \u201cI shall give.\u201d That refers to two\nthings. First of all, he shall give his life on the cross. In the second place,\n\u201cI shall be the bread of life,\u201d which means of course that he comes to us in\nthe bodily Word in Baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>Out of this\nare <b>three huge, necessary, life-changing consequences.<\/b> The <b>first<\/b>\none is: \u201clife forever.\u201d Not the kind of bread, as he says in the verses\npreceding, not the kind of bread which was manna. Manna was O.K. They had that\nin the Old Testament. But that bread came and went. This is the living bread\nwhich gives life forever. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>Earlier in\nJohn 14:6a it states: \u201cI am the way and the truth and the life.\u201d He is the life.\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>The <b>second<\/b>\nnecessary, life-changing consequence is about other religions. Not only is it\nthat it is not the kind of \u201clife\u201d that is described in the Old Testament, but\nit is \u201clife\u201d in him, and as it says in John 14:6b: \u201cno one comes to the Father\nbut by me.\u201d He is life, and it is not found elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>The <b>third<\/b>\nnecessary, life-changing consequence is that we are given a perspective, a\nfocus for how we live now and forever. You may wrongly think that this means\nyou\u2019ve got to be \u201cspiritual,\u201d or \u201cother-worldly.\u201d No. That\u2019s not what it means.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>But it also\ndoesn\u2019t mean that this life is all there is: That\u2019s it. No, it means we have a perspective.\nAnd that perspective is pointed out in the New Testament in two ways. On the\none hand, and the King James translation is remarkable: \u201cHere we have no\nabiding city\u201d (Hebrews 13:14). Or as Paul writes: \u201cWe live as if not. . .\u00a0\nbecause the form of this world is passing away\u201d (1 Cor 7:29-31). Or as in\nPhilippians 3:20: \u201cOur commonwealth (our kingdom) is in heaven.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>On the\nother hand, we are called to be here now, living in this new and different way.\nS\u00f8ren Kierkegaard describes this new life this way: It is as if you were\nsitting at a window and looking out at the world and thinking and remembering\nto yourself: It\u2019s all taken away, but it\u2019s all given back in a different way.\nWe are given this calling, and we are to live here now in him. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>In the Small\nCatechism, in the explanation to the Second Article of the Creed, it says: \u201cAll\nthis he has done that I may be his own, live under him in his kingdom (on the\none hand now), and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and\nblessedness. . . . This is most certainly true.\u201d Amen<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:\"Open Sans\",sans-serif'>&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/body>\n\n<\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. Select <a href=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=7132\"> here<\/a> to read more or <a href=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Pentecost-17.pdf\">here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7132"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7138,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7132\/revisions\/7138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}