“Who do you say that Jesus is?” This is one of the most important questions in the world, and we hear it asked for the very first time in our Bible reading this morning. I wonder how you would answer it. I wonder how we even start thinking about the answer.
To give us a way into how we think about this, about how we might understand and talk about who Jesus is, perhaps it would be helpful for us to explore how we define ourselves, how we describe our own identity.
One way is by using our names and titles. For example, I am The Rev’d Timothy Stephen Carter.
For many of us our names have meaning beyond just being our name – either because the word itself means something in English or another language, or because we are named for other people. My first name, “Timothy” means “one who honours God”, and that has meant something to me in my life, I haven’t always, or even often, lived up to it – but it’s something that I’ve aspired to be – one who honours God.
My middle name is Stephen, which is my Dad’s name, and so that is important to me as well. My title, The Rev’d, indicates that I have been ordained in the church for a certain kind of ministry. This is one set of ways of defining who I am.
Another way would be to think about my relationships. I am a son, a husband, a father, a friend, a pastor. Each of those relationships bring something different to me, and each has shaped me in different ways. If I wasn’t Liz’s husband, I would be a different person. If I didn’t have children, other people would see me differently.
A third way of thinking about this question would be to look about where I came from, who my parents are, my family heritage. This goes beyond my relationship with my parents. Even if I’d never known them, who I am would still be shaped by my genetic inheritance from them and my ancestors, most of whom I didn’t ever know.
Three ways of answering the question “Who Am I”. My names, my relationships, my heritage.
Let’s keep these three in mind as we look at the next part of the Apostles’ Creed, that we are exploring in our Sunday morning services this autumn. This morning we are looking at the first section that talks about what we believe about Jesus:
“I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,”
Straight away, the first thing, is the name and title. The name Jesus and the title Christ.
In our first reading, from Luke’s carefully researched historical account of the good news of Jesus, we read about an encounter between a messenger from God, an angel, and a young woman called Mary. The angel has come to tell her that she is going to have a son, and one of the first things that she is told is that he is to be called Jesus. In Matthew’s account, we read that the angel also visited Mary’s fiancee, Joseph and told him the same thing, with a little bit extra,
“You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
The name Jesus means “God saves”, and this is exactly who Jesus was sent to do, to save us from our sins, our shame, from all the things that we need rescuing from.
And what about his title, Christ. This word is the Greek version of the Aramaic and Hebrew words which we know as “Messiah”. In our reading from Mark’s eye witness account of Jesus’ life and ministry we heard a conversation between Jesus and his friends and followers, in which he asks them a variation of the most important question in the world, “Who do the people say that I am?” The people have all kinds of ideas, so Jesus focuses on the ones in front of him, “Who do you say I am?”
Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.”
Christ and Messiah mean the same thing. They are the title of the one that was chosen and sent by God to rescue creation from the mess that it had got in. It works alongside the meaning of his name, strengthens it, it makes sense that we use them together.
This is the one we believe in. Jesus Christ – Chosen and sent by God to be God’s rescue.
So, that’s his name and title, but what comes next? What comes next is his relationships.
“his only Son, our Lord”
The first of these is his relationship as Son. But whose Son? This looks back to the first part of the Creed, which Hugh helped us to explore last week,
“I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”
So, Jesus is God’s only Son. This might provoke a couple of questions for us.
The first one is around the word, “Only”.
In 1 John 3 v 1 it says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children on God! And that is what we are!”
So, if all Christians are children – sons and daughters of God, then what does it mean for Jesus to be God’s only Son? This is a question that Jesus’ first followers thought about a lot, and came to understand it as a difference that can be illustrated by the difference between a biological child and an adopted child. As Paul puts it in Romans,
“the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’
In contrast Jesus is, as one of the other creeds puts it is, “eternally begotten of the Father … begotten, not made,”
All of the Father’s children are loved. Some of us are adopted into God’s family. One of us, Jesus, was begotten of God. We don’t really know what that means. We know what it excludes. It means that Jesus wasn’t created. We know that he was there before time began. It describes something of the depth of relationship and connectedness between the God the Father and God the Son – it’s all about that relationship of deep love.
Just as Son describes Jesus relationship to the Father, so Lord describes Jesus’ relationship with us.
We don’t really have Lords or Masters in our culture today, so it can be difficult for us to get our heads around what this means. There is something here about respect and honour, Jesus is the one who directs our lives, who is worthy of our obedience, whom we love and serve. I’m a sucker for Arthurian legends and tales of derring do amongst the Knights of the Round Table. And in that world there was the concept of the liege-lord, the one who the knights pledged the sword, who they loved and trusted to follow into battle, who looked out for them and provided for them.
If you’re more into Lord of The Rings – the Aragorn character. If you’re into Marvel maybe it’s Captain America. I don’t know who it would be for you – perhaps a mentor, a teacher, a sister. Someone we would follow to the ends of the earth. Our Lord.
So that’s his name and title, his relationships, but what about his origin story?
“who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,”
These brief sentences, drawing straight from Luke’s gospel, weave together two things about Jesus that can never be separated. He is fully God. He is fully human.
He was conceived – a human, physical, bodily process
By the Holy Spirit – a divine, miraculous, intervention
Born – a human, very physical, bodily process
Of the Virgin – there had to have been a divine, miraculous, intervention
Mary – he had a human mother.
One of the main reasons that these statements of Christian belief, the Creeds, were first written, was to correct errors that had started to crop up in the church. And one of the most common errors was about Jesus humanity and divinity. Either people thought that Jesus was a good man, inspired by God, filled with God’s spirit, but not actually completely God. Or they thought that Jesus was God, but that he wasn’t really human – he was what we might call now an Avatar, looking like a human but not really, totally human. But the Bible insists repeatedly that he was fully God and fully human. It is mind bending but there is no-where else to go. To let go of one of them lets go of all the meaning of who he is and the meaning of what he did and continues to do.
Because he is God, he was able to go to the cross, defeat death and sin, be raised to life and is now in heaven. Because he is human, in doing that he in his own body reconciled humanity to God, and as a created human is now in heaven, interceding for us. Because he, a human, is now in heaven, we know that humans, we, are welcome there.
So that is the name and title, the relationships and the origin story:
“I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,”
But what does this mean for us?
Notice that it is not “I believe that….” it is “I believe in….”
It’s a different quality. It’s a belief that leads to action – it’s a trust, it’s a life changing commitment.
As we say the creed we are saying that we stake our lives on Jesus being chosen by God to rescue each of us from sin and death, that we have faith that because Jesus is God’s Son, we too can be God’s children and so we chose to submit to him as Lord, knowing that we can trust him. We are lost in wonder that somehow we is both God and human, and by that dual nature, so lifts our humanity up to divinity, and calls us to share in that.
This is the answer to the most important question in the world. “Who do you say that Jesus is?”