DAVID'S EMAIL BIBLE STUDY:
Jesus 2
A. INTRODUCTION
... You’re helping me. With unusual emphasis, we’ll be concentrating on the person and purpose of Jesus in the months ahead. Who is he? What is he? Why is he relevant to our little corner of the world, in this 21
st
century? From preaching to teaching to Bible Study to next winter’s Advent Devotional to my next writing project, JESUS is at the center. Our last Bible Study looked at what the Jewish people were expecting in the centuries they awaited “the Messiah”. Isaiah 9 emphasized his greatness and majesty as “Almighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”. Isaiah 53 describes how humanity will treat God’s “Christ”, his chosen one. In graphic language we are told he will be “despised, rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, stricken, afflicted, pierced, crushed, bruised”, a person not worth anything in the daily world. Taken together, that’s the Messiah that Jesus became. s.
C. SUMMARY.
Using the above scripture, and expanding before and after, John’s Gospel provides 7 “I AM” statements that Jesus uses to define himself. Jesus says “I AM the Light of the world (8:12), the Door/Gate (10:9), the Good Shepherd (10:11), the Bread of Life (6:36), the Resurrection and the Life (11:25), the Way and the Truth and Life (14:6), the Vine (15:15). Jesus describes what we need, what is better than the alternative, what will help us. That’s Jesus’ self-definition. It’s how Jesus views himself.
D. KEY POINTS
1.
EXCELSIOR. In John 11 Jesus had been asked to hurry to a village where his friend, Lazarus, was sick. Frankly, Jesus took his own sweet time, and Lazarus was dead when Jesus arrived. Gently criticized by the dead man’s sister, Jesus responds with a tremendous self-awareness, saying, “I am the Resurrection and the Life (11:25-26): and later adds “the Way and the Truth” (14:6). Resurrection, Way, Truth, and Life. Jesus has a clear sense of purpose, identity, and destiny. Christians and theologians have long argued about the “nature” of Jesus (God, man, or both), whether he was divine and knew it. Let me confess: I believe Jesus was Divine, the Son of God. But in sheer human terms Jesus is offering something better and more personal and more practical. He offers a path to the best experience of life in this life, and the promise of life after this life. Jesus is not soft peddling himself.
2.
PHILOSOPHY 101. I remember the questions: “What is the sound of one hand clapping? If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it fall, does it make a sound?” Each question suggests the importance of relationship. Someone has to be around, to hear, to appreciate, to respond. Jesus says he is “the Vine” but we are “the branches”. We are organically connected. Together, we are the proof of each other. Jesus is “the Good Shepherd”, and we are “the sheep” that know his voice, that count on his care, that enter his gate (10:9-11). We take advantage of what Jesus has to offer. It’s symbiotic. A shepherd without sheep, sheep without a shepherd – both are lost. When Jesus says he is our “Bread”, or “the Light”, those are daily, vital, urgent needs being met. And when he says he is “the Resurrection and the Life” it is our life that gets fulfilled, our fears of death lessened, even taken away.
3.
The question is: We have seen what the Jewish people were expecting in the Messiah; we have what Jesus said about himself; now, what do you make of Jesus? That’s where I’m headed, that’s where our Advent Devotional is headed.
