I was listening to a sermon and was reminded that Jesus’ birth raised a lot of hopes.
Israel yearned for the Messiah, someone who would throw of the yoke of oppression of Roman rule. The Pharisees saw a Messiah who would model their devotion to the Law. The people looked for the political freedom that would come with the Messiah.
Even those who followed Jesus were convinced this what His reason for coming to them. A read through of the Gospel accounts show that the small group was constantly fighting about who would have what position in Jesus’ kingdom. There is even the record of James and John’s mother coming to Jesus to ask that her sons be given places of high esteem and power in His kingdom (cf. Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 35-45 shows it was James and John that came to Jesus). It’s my belief that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was based on the premise that the betrayal would force Jesus’ hand and compel Him to fight for His kingdom. When Jesus didn’t do it, Judas realized that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah he expected.
The only problem was that Jesus never fit the boxes that were built for Him. He was never a political messiah. He was not a person who fit the Pharisees’ narrow view of what a true believer was (Jesus violated the Sabbath way too many times for their taste).
For almost as long as there has been an awareness of Jesus, there has been the problem of seeking to put Him into the box we are comfortable with. But Jesus didn’t come to fit our beliefs; rather, He came to challenge us, to cause us to rethink what we thought we knew.
And as Jesus begins to challenge us and to transform our ideas, He also calls us to follow Him, letting Him live through us in order to transform our world.
Instances of Confusion about Jesus
The first time we know of where someone needed a better understanding of who Jesus is comes from His own parents, Joseph and Mary. In Luke 2:41-52, we read how the 12-year old Jesus became separated from His parents when they had travelled to Jerusalem for Passover. On the way back, they discovered at the end of the first day’s travel that He wasn’t with them. They returned to Jerusalem, looking everywhere for the missing boy. After three days of searching, they finally found Jesus was in the Temple area. Mary’s words to Jesus were that they had been anxiously searching for Him. Jesus’ words to her are, “Why were you searching for Me? Didn’t you know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). The next verse says they didn’t understand what He was saying.
This is coming from the two people who knew that Jesus was the Son of God. Both had been told by an angel that Jesus was conceived by the Father. Both of them understood the implications of what the angel had said. But neither of them could grasp the simplicity of Jesus’ words to them when they finally found Him.
Someone else who should have had a firm grasp on who Jesus was is His cousin, John the Baptist. John’s own conception, while also miraculous, was heralded as the one who would speak of Jesus’ coming. John grasped that truth. “Then John gave this testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on Him. I would not have known Him, except that the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is He who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God’” (John 1:32-34). John was quick to testify repeatedly that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
And yet, even John had doubts. John was in prison, and he heard what Jesus was doing. John sent his own disciples to ask Jesus, “Are You the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3).
John had his expectations of what the Messiah was supposed to be, and Jesus didn’t seem to fit his expectations. The man who was filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth (cf. Luke 1:15) questioned Jesus’ claim to the Messiahship. Why? Because Jesus wasn’t doing what John expected the Messiah to do.
There are other examples of Jesus’ family questioning who Jesus was (cf. John 7:1-5) as well as the disciples’ confusion.
The Confusion Still Exists
In our world today, there are all sorts of people who have pre-conceived ideas of who Jesus is and what He’s supposed to do. Even today, there are some who look to Jesus for political solutions in our day and age. I hear people say America needs a revival. While I agree we need revival, I have to ask myself what exactly revival means to each person, including myself.
We look to Jesus as someone who is supposed to fulfill our every desire. We look to Him to make our lives easier. We look to Him to take away the things we think are bad or wrong in our world.
But Jesus was very quick to tell anyone who would listen that He wasn’t their idea of a Messiah. Look at what Jesus had to say about Himself:
To a man who professed a desire to follow Jesus, Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head” (Luke 9:58). If we think Jesus is here to give us what we want, we need to think again.
Jesus also said, “As for the person who hears My words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it” (John 12:47). There are those in our world who look for a Jesus who will judge the sins of others, but Jesus did not come to condemn or to judge. He didn’t deny sin, and He confronted sin where it was, but He did so with compassion and unconditional love. Look at the woman caught in adultery (cf. John 8:1-11), or the woman at the well (cf. John 4).
Throughout His ministry, people were asking questions about Him. When Jesus calmed a storm, the question was, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and waves obey Him!” (Matthew 8:27). He was called a teacher and a prophet, a heretic and a child of Satan.
In every instance, Jesus defied definition.
So, What Should We Be Looking For?
The simple answer is, we should be letting Jesus tell us who He is. We should let Him challenge us, expanding our knowledge in ways we may not expect or want. When Jesus takes hold of a life, He does things that shape us and change us. Through His love and His presence, Jesus makes us what we really are meant to be.
I was re-reading recently “Lifetime Guarantee” by Bill Gilham. He uses an illustration that shows how Jesus taking control of our lives allows us to be what we were always meant to be. He said in his workshop he had a power sander, a power drill and a power saw. When they are plugged into the electricity, each of them does what they were created to do. Take away the electricity, though, and they cease being anything more than glorified paperweights. His point was that Jesus is the electricity that allows us to become fully what He wants us to be. Without Him, we are nothing (cf. John 15:1-8).
Conclusion
Those who are followers of Christ want Him to take control and transform us and our world. We yearn for that.
The problem we too often have is that we expect Jesus to be a certain way. He is not. Jesus is Jesus. He doesn’t change to fit our expectations. We change to fit into His expectations. And in this way, revival comes.
© 2019 Glynn Beaty