Who is Jesus? Christ the Saviour is born to us.
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11)
Merry Christmas! But who is this Jesus? I recently found on YouTube ‘Billy Graham’s Greatest Sermon – “Who is Jesus?”’ Many other influential preachers through history have preached on this question many times; academics have debated, fellowships have discussed, and authors have written. Greg Gilbert in his little book ‘Who is Jesus?’ presents him as an Extraordinary Man and a Claimant to the Throne. Greg begins at Jesus’ baptism when God spoke about ‘his Beloved Son’, and wades through both the many astonishing teachings and miracles and the many claims of Jesus Christ. But Greg critically misses out evidence around Jesus birth and childhood. The closest he comes to this point is from the prophetic angle when he quotes from Isaiah 9:6-7, which begins, ‘For to us a child is born’. What was his birth like?
First, Angel Gabriel visited Mary to announce that the baby would be named Jesus [Saviour], called the Son of the Most High, and be given the throne of his father David to reign forever; then another Angel visited shepherds and announced the birth of a Saviour who is Christ the Lord; then wise astronomers from the East came seeking him ‘who has been born king of the Jews’; then Simeon in the temple called him ‘God’s Salvation’. Some extra-biblical sources bespeak of the astonishing things Jesus did as a child, and we also find in the Bible his astonishing debate with Temple elders when he is still a child! No doubt he was an Astonishing Man and a Claimant to the Throne.
Greg reminds us of William Shakespeare who heard King Henry IV complaining about the duties of kingship: why would Sleep rather live in the ramshackle hovels of the poor rather than in the palaces of a king, and why she could give her gift of rest to a soaked sailor boy being tossed around by the sea while denying it to a rich and powerful king in all his quiet comfort. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”, he concludes. But the person whose head lies even more uneasily is the man who claims to be a king when nobody else recognizes it. History has proved that the most likely end of this person is losing the head onto which he intended to wear the crown! Herod attempted so to kill Jesus when he learnt about the claim.
The question at hand does not demand an academic answer; finding the true identity of Jesus Christ does not end in the head or on paper. Living now in the time when we know what unfolded during and after his life on earth – the victories and proofs, we should not just acknowledge Him as rightly King of kings, but embrace him in our hearts – born to us, trusting Him to lead us through this earthly life, and tomorrow to bring into everlasting blissful fellowship with God the Father.
God bless you all.