Our Sunday School lesson this past week was taken from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8 verses 27 through 38. It’s the pivotal passage of that gospel in which Jesus asks of His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”
I thought it was a bit of a stretch for that passage, but the theme of the lesson revolved around our answer to that question. Jesus is Lord. It rolls off our tongues very easily and we often castigate the first century Jewish leaders and even His own followers for not recognizing who Jesus was. They were looking for a Messiah, the Christ, a Deliverer who would fulfill all their earthly needs. They expected one who would throw off the bonds of the Roman empire and restore to Israel her rightful place, an earthly kingdom surpassing the glory of the age of Solomon. They desired the anointed one who would come in power, rule with might, correct what was wrong and uphold who was right.
Jesus is Lord, but he came humbly to the people of Judea.
What if we asked the question ever so slightly differently? What if we asked, what is Jesus to you? I would suggest that most of us modern day western culture Christians would respond by explaining how all our needs are met in Him, that He fulfills all our desires and that all our hopes are met in Jesus. All our sense of self esteem is based upon the knowledge that the Darling of Heaven came down to die for us in our sin. We are today adopted children of God because of what He has done.
Does it sound familiar?
Who is Lord? Have we not made ourselves lord and relegated the King of all the universe to serving our needs? Oh, don’t misunderstand, nothing that we have said is necessarily inaccurate, it is only that it comes first to our minds what He does for us. Do we not fall into the same trap as did the Pharisees of old and the unlearned disciples of Jesus’ earthly ministry? Have we not come seeking a Messiah, the Christ, a Deliverer who will meet our needs?
Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”
Jesus did not say that after we, His followers, had made the cross a symbol of all we hold dear. He did not say that when the cross had come to mean our daily burden or our rightful place of service. He said it when the cross was an instrument of death, humiliating, unjust, and incomprehensibly painful death. He said, “Follow Me,” not as He walked away from the crucifixion, but as He moved toward His inevitable execution, His death for our life.
We say, “Jesus is Lord,” and we mean that He is ruler of all nature, all the events of my life and of this world, that before Him every knee in Heaven and on Earth shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Oh He is that and much more, but is He Lord of my life, of yours? Is He all that we hope for, all that we live for, all that we long to be spent for? When we pray, do we ask, “Won’t You meet my needs today?” or do we implore, “Please use me this day, Lord. Prepare me to be used of You for Your purpose, whatever that may be.”
Jesus is Lord. We can neither confirm nor contest that He is. We can only acknowledge what we know to be true. We do not make Him Lord; we only confess that He is.
Who is Jesus today? Who do men say that He is? Who do you say that He is? .