Jesus: Obscured by Familiarity

This page is going to be devoted to talking about who Jesus really is and what He was really like. I'll be adding more to it from time to time. We think we know all about Jesus, but we don't. There are so many layers in the Bible that, for example, you can read the Gospel of John and hear all the old sermon platitudes running in your head and end up not actually reading the Gospel of John.

I'm on a quest to discover what Jesus was really like and what He really said and what He really did. The old sermons might be right about some of the things I think I know about Him, but I think they're wrong a lot of the time--or at least only partially right. Truly, how can anybody be completely right about anything in the Bible! Whenever we read it, we only see a fragment of whatever it is we are reading. There are so many layers you can spend your entire life studying just one chapter. For instance, the words, "Let there be light," which, as it turns out, is actually, "Light be," in the Hebrew, contain all the facts about the so called "Big Bang" that a person really needs to know--a child can understand it--but once you realize those words contain all you really need to know, you find out you don't really know! A person can spend his whole life coming to understand, "Light be"! I have spent months and I'm not even a physicist.

John 18:5

Take John 18 when the priests' soldiers come to arrest Jesus. Everybody has this picture that when the soldiers came Jesus just stepped up and said, "I'm the guy you want," but that's not what He said! Go to Bible Hub and look up John 18:5, then click on the "Greek" tab in the middle bar. You'll find the "He" part in brackets. This means that the "He" part isn't in the original text--that means translators have added the "He" part. Sometimes they have to do this because English needs it to make sense.

Back in Exodus when God attracts Moses to Himself, He uses a bush which He sets on fire with a flame that doesn't burn up the bush. This is quite an odd thing and it certainly would get my attention! And when Moses asks, "Who shall I say sent me?" God replies, "Tell them I AM sent you." I AM is the mystic Name of God which is one of those sets of words in the Bible you can spend your whole life coming to understand. But in John 18 verse five, Jesus says it and the soldiers who are there to arrest Jesus all fall down. He says, "I AM" and BAM, they topple like dominoes tumbling over; they crumple like trees before a tornado; they stumble back, the front row falling into the row behind them and soon they're all on the ground. At this point, I suspect, they can't remember what they were supposed to be doing or why they have to do it! If I were there I'd be wondering what the heck I was doing! I'd be like, "I think I'll go home now." But Jesus prompts them, He reminds them of their job, He gets them back on task. He says, "Now what was it you wanted? Who did you come here to find?" They reply, "Jesus of Nazareth." At this point the memory of this now apparently mild fellow as this blast of power is already beginning to fade. How long do we really believe, I mean really believe in a miracle after it has happened? We get back to laundry and dishes and forget just how awesome the miracle was--after all, laundry and dishes is real life, amazing stuff isn't. Jesus didn't go to the cross like some wimp, He went will all His mojo rolling on full blast! He went because He chose to go, not because He didn't have any power to stop it from happening. That's the Lord Jesus!

James Tissot, "The Guards Falling Backwards," painted 1886-1894