Matthew 16:13-18
In October of 1735, John Wesley set out from England for the colony of Georgia, where he planned to preach to the settlers and to convert the Native Americans. In a way, it was also a personal spiritual quest; he hoped to find his own way to salvation during this mission. For a long time, Wesley had struggled with the fact that he was unsure of his faith and uncertain of whether or not he had experienced true salvation. Shortly before he left on his trip, he wrote to a friend, “I shall plainly declare the thing as it is. My chief motive, to which all the rest are subordinate, is the hope of saving my own soul.”
The voyage to Georgia turned out to be a further time for questioning and fear. The ship encountered one storm after another crossing the Atlantic. When he realized that he very well could die before reaching his destination, Wesley knew that he was not certain of his own salvation. During one particularly fierce storm, after the sails had been torn apart and some of the passengers started to scream in terror, Wesley noticed that a small group of Moravians were gathered together very calmly singing hymns. Wesley asked one of them, “Are you not afraid?” The answer came back, “Why should I be afraid? I know Christ.” And after a moment, the man turned back to Wesley and asked, “Do you know Christ?”
Do you know Christ? That is a crucial question. Do you really know Jesus? Who is Jesus to you? Because it isn’t just knowing ABOUT Jesus that matters; it is KNOWING JESUS in a personal relationship. Who is Jesus to you?
There are many ways of understanding who Jesus is. There are many references in history and literature, theology and music. The great Jewish historian Josephus wrote about Jesus: “Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works – a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.” Saint Ambrose, who was the bishop of Milan in the late 4th century, wrote, “Christ … is the perfect representation of God.” The great church reformer Martin Luther said, “In his life, Christ is an example, showing us how to live; in his death, he is a sacrifice, satisfying for our sins; in his resurrection, a conqueror; in his ascension, a king; in his intercession, a high priest.” American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “Jesus is the most perfect of all men that have yet appeared.” Philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “Jesus Christ is the center of all, and the goal to which all tends.” Lew Wallace, veteran of the American Civil War and author of the novel, Ben-Hur, said, “I have come to the deliberate conclusion that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of the Jews, the Savior of the world, and my personal Savior.” Johannes von Muller said, “Christ is the key to the history of the world.” And Joseph Ernst Renan wrote, “Jesus was the greatest religious genius that ever lived.”
All of those are wonderful descriptions. But who is Jesus to you?
Some people have tried to define Jesus by what he did and what happened to him when he walked this earth. For example, one author wrote:
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn’t go to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompanies greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. 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 garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of [human existence] on this earth as much as that one solitary life.
Yes, all of that is true. But who is Jesus to you?
Some people see Jesus as a friend, some as a comforter. Some think of baby Jesus, meek and mild. Some think of him as the one who walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own. Some remember the Jesus who calmed the storm and cast out demons. To some he is the Lamb, to others the Shepherd.
Dorothy Sayers described him as something of a radical activist:
The people who hanged Jesus never accused him of being a bore; on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with the atmosphere of tedium … To those who knew him, however, he in no way suggested a milk-and-water person; they objected to him as a dangerous firebrand. True, he was tender to the unfortunate, patient with honest inquiries, and humble before heaven; but he insulted respectable clergymen by calling them hypocrites; he referred to King Herod as “that fox”; he went to parties in disreputable company and was looked upon as a “gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners”; he insulted indignant tradesmen and threw them and their belongings out of the Temple …; he showed no proper deference for wealth or social position; when confronted with neat dialectical traps, he displayed a paradoxical humor that affronted serious-minded people, and he retorted by asking disagreeable questions that could not be answered by rule of thumb. But he had a “daily beauty in his life that made us ugly,” and officialdom felt that the established order of things would be more secure without him. So they did away with God in the name of peace and quietness.
All of these descriptions of Jesus are good and correct, as far as they go. They all tell at least a part of the story. But the question remains: Who is Jesus to you?
Jesus Himself knew that this question was a question that really mattered. And as he felt the opposition growing and began to feel that his end was near, the answer to that question became even more critical. The Jews were plotting to have him killed as a dangerous heretic. When he was gone, would anyone know what it was that he had come to do? Did anyone really understand? Did anyone recognize who and what he was? Would there be anyone to carry on his work after he was dead and buried?
And so Jesus posed the question to his disciples, “Who do other people say that I am?” He got some interesting answers. Some people thought he might be John the Baptist, come back from the dead, the last of the prophets. Others felt that Jesus might be Elijah. Elijah had been the greatest of the prophets, a man of power who had worked miracles. The Jews believed that Elijah would be the forerunner of the Messiah, that he would return before the Messiah came. Still other people suggested that Jesus might be Jeremiah come back from the dead. Jeremiah had been a prophet of reform and hope. It was believed that some time before the Jewish people had been taken into exile in Babylon, Jeremiah had removed the Ark of the covenant and the altar of incense from the Temple and hidden them in a cave on Mount Nebo. Before the Messiah came, Jeremiah would return and bring them back to Jerusalem, and the glory of God would once again be with the people.
From the answers that the disciples reported, Jesus knew that at least people knew there was something different and special about him. But that wasn’t enough. No one had really gotten hold of the entire truth. So, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” I can just imagine the utter silence that must have fallen over the group. No one dared to say anything. But finally Peter – bold Peter – said, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” At least someone understood! And we might have known that it would be Peter! Frederick Buechner wrote, “It took a lot of guts to say, and Jesus knew it did. If it was true, it was enough to blow the lid off everything. If it wasn’t true, you could get yourself stoned to death as a blasphemer for just thinking it. But Peter said it anyway …”
Who is Jesus to you? The question remains. Don’t tell me what you know about Jesus. The question isn’t, “What do you know about Jesus?” The question is, “Who is Jesus to you? Do you know Jesus?”
We left John Wesley struggling to answer the question, “Do you know Christ?” The struggle went on, even after he returned to England in 1738 after a discouraging experience in Georgia. It seemed that he ought to know Jesus, he ought to feel secure in his salvation, and yet there was still something missing. On the evening of May 24, 1738, John went very unwillingly to a religious society meeting on Aldersgate Street. While he was listening to someone read from Martin Luther’s commentary on the book of Romans, Wesley felt something that he referred to as his conversion. He later wrote in his journal, “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” I think that John Wesley no longer just knew about Christ, he knew Jesus in a new and personal way. He knew who Jesus was to him.
Who is Jesus to you? Only you can answer that question. And once you know the answer, everything else is easier to understand and you will be secure in knowing that you have experienced salvation.
