Does Jesus Matter?
Delivered February 27, 2011
Is Jesus important? Can’t you have a healthy spiritual life without bringing the figure of Jesus of Nazareth into the picture? Does it really matter if Jesus was born of a virgin, died on a cross and rose from the dead? Aren’t these just myths? Isn’t it really his teachings that are important? Aren’t we just as well off with the teachings of Buddha, Muhammad, Lao Tzu and the gurus of India? What is this hang-up that Christians have about Jesus? Isn’t he really just one of many spiritual teachers who have lived and taught the same eternal truths? In other words: Does Jesus’ life matter?
This is what I want to address today. I want to do it within the framework of the Apostles Creed, which we are exploring this winter in this series of sermons entitled “Questions of Faith.” The largest section of the Apostles’ Creed deals with Jesus. Six of the traditional twelve lines of the creed (attributed to the 12 apostles) deal with Christ. Only one line is about God: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” The next six are about Jesus:
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From there he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I am going to try to deal with all of this in one sermon. It is an impossible task, but I am not trying to communicate a systematic theology in these sermons. I just want to sketch the outline of why Jesus’ life matters. Biblical faith – both Old Testament Hebraic faith and New Testament Christian faith – is grounded in history. The Bible is not primarily a theology book; it is a record of God’s dealings with people in history. History is important to Christians. Jesus’ life is important. In fact who Jesus is and what he did is more important than what he taught. Last Sunday I talked about who Jesus is according to the Apostles’ Creed: the Christ, the Son of God, our Lord. Today I talk about his life. This Christological section of the creed falls into three parts: Jesus’ birth, his passion, and his victory.
I. First is Jesus’ birth. A woman took her 14-year-old daughter to the doctor. The doctor says, "Okay, ma’am, what seems to be the problem? "The mother says, "It's my daughter. She keeps getting these cravings, she's putting on weight and is sick most mornings." The doctor gives the teen a thorough examination then turns to the mother and says, "Well, I don't know how to tell you this but your daughter is pregnant. About 4 months would be my guess." The mother says, "Pregnant?! She can't be, she has never been with a man! Have you, darling?" She replies, "No mother! I've never even kissed a boy!" The doctor walked over to the window and just stares out it. About five minutes pass and finally the mother says, "Is there something wrong out there doctor?" The doctor replies, "No, not really, it's just that the last time something like this happened, a star appeared in the east, angels sang hymns in the sky and three wise men came over the hill. I'm not going to miss it this time!"
The Apostles Creed says Jesus was “was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.” Jesus’ birth is one of the most controversial elements of Christian doctrine. As I read and listen to critiques of Christianity, the accounts of Jesus’ birth are treated with special contempt. The Christmas story is routinely scorned as a myth borrowed from other religions or mythologies. This past Christmas the American Atheists organization waged a publicity campaign against the Christmas story. One of the billboards displayed in NYC showed the wise men coming to the manger with the words: “You know it’s a myth. This season celebrate Reason.” The idea that Jesus was born of a virgin is ridiculed as a biological impossibility – nothing more than a legend that developed later and inserted into the gospel narrative. The same with the Star of Bethlehem and the Wise Men coming from the East. Even the idea that Jesus was born in Bethlehem is treated as a later fabrication of the church meant to shore up the claim that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah.
What are we to make of the statement in the creed that Jesus “was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary”? Is this really so unbelievable and ridiculous that no intelligent educated 21st century person could possibly take it seriously? I don’t think it is so implausible. Virgin births – the scientific name is parthenogenesis – is known in the animal world. Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in some invertebrate animal species and some vertebrates (e.g. some reptiles, fish, and even birds and sharks.) It was made famous by the movie Jurassic Park, when the all female population of dinosaurs suddenly began reproducing without any males around. But it is not science fiction; it is science. Parthenogenesis has been induced artificially in fish and amphibians. This type of asexual reproduction has even been induced in mammals – mice and rabbits.
If scientists can produce virgin births in mammals in the laboratory, why is it so unbelievable that God could have done it in Mary’s womb? Humans share most of our DNA with these mammals. It is just a matter of switching on the right gene. If God wanted to make a point that this little baby was unique, what better way to do it than a virgin birth? As I said in a previous sermon, I understand miracles not as God breaking the laws of nature, but using the laws of nature in ways we do not yet comprehend. The virgin birth is believable
II. The next section of the creed talks about Jesus passion. (The word passion refers to Jesus’ suffering and death and burial.) It is interesting that this ancient statement of faith moves immediately from Jesus birth to his passion. There is no mention of anything about his life, teachings or ministry. This confirms what I said at the beginning – that for Christians what is most important about Jesus is not what he said or did for the first 33 years of his life, but what happened at the end of his life - his death and resurrection.
This is echoed in the four gospels. Look at the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - in our New Testament and you will see that a large percentage of the books is devoted to the last week of Jesus’ life. The gospel writers are clearly pointing to the death of Jesus on the cross as of paramount importance. Jesus’ himself is recorded as pointing to his death as the culminating event of his life. Jesus teaching shifted from talking about the Kingdom of God to how his death was to usher in that Kingdom. Our Gospel Lesson says: “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the heart of the gospel. There is no Christianity without these events. These are not just mythological motifs borrowed from other religions, even though it is true that mythical deaths and resurrections can be found in non-Christian religions. Jesus’ passion is not a mythological suffering and death; it is depicted as an historical event which occurred during a specific historical period when Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor in Palestine.
The myths of the sacrificial deaths and resurrections of various gods found in other mythologies are fulfilled in history in Jesus Christ. I see them as prophecies, which God placed in every culture on earth. Jesus is the fulfillment of these mythologies in history. The truths found in mythologies for millennia throughout the world were fulfilled in Jesus who said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” I am not one to disparage other spiritual and religious traditions. I affirm them because I see them fulfilled historically and theologically in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Jesus suffered, was crucified, died and was buried. That is all the creed says. It doesn’t tell us why this is important and what happened through that death and resurrection. I could do a whole series of sermons just on Christian understandings of the Cross – which I have done, and may do in the future - but I am not doing now. Suffice it to say that Christians find the death and resurrection of Jesus to be the key to freeing humankind from the power of death and sin. Our eternal redemption is accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
At this point I need to mention one controversial phrase that is inserted here in the creed. It says Jesus “was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead.” This phrase “He descended into hell” is included by some and omitted by others. There is disagreement as to whether it was originally part of the creed. Interestingly it is not included in the Methodist version of the creed in our Methodist hymnal. Some translate the phrase as “he descended to Hades” or “descended to the dead.” The controversy concerns what Jesus was doing and where he was during that period between his death and resurrection. I don’t want to get into the controversy here, but I did want to acknowledge its existence. It is not essential to our understanding of who Christ was and is. What is important is that he died; he was buried; and he rose from the dead.
III. I have talked about Jesus’ birth and his passion. Third I want to talk about his Victory. The creed says: “The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
He rose from the dead. That is the most important aspect of his victory. Without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no gospel and no Christianity. The gospel rises or falls on whether or not Jesus really rose from the dead. Like the virgin birth, this is also a very controversial teaching, for the same reason. It is scientifically and historically difficult to accept. Many people would say it is impossible for a rational educated person today to literally believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. They say you might accept it as a literary symbol or a spiritual truth. But to believe that the physical body of Jesus was somehow restored to life is more than many people can swallow. Frankly, to many people it smells like religious nonsense.
Earlier this month I taught a class for the Community School in Tamworth on Christianity as part of a Comparative Religion class. The class rightly picked up on the fact that the resurrection of Jesus was the distinctive tenet of our religion and the most unbelievable. Can we believe in the historical resurrection of Jesus without committing intellectual suicide – without checking our brains at the door of the church?
I think we can. I would say to the skeptics what Shakespeare said, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I think that the resurrection of Jesus is believable in a way that skeptics do not comprehend. The resurrection is misunderstood. The resurrection of Jesus was not the resuscitation of a corpse; it was the resurrection of a body. There is a difference between the two.
There are hints in the scriptures that the risen Christ was different from, as well as the same as, the crucified Jesus. The gospels say repeatedly that his disciples did not recognize the risen Christ. Mary at the empty tomb, the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, the disciples in the upper room and by the Sea of Galilee, did not recognized Jesus when they saw him. In every case it took some convincing that this was the same man they lived with for three years. Jesus looked so different that two of his closest companions could walk and talk with him for hours on the Emmaus Road and not recognize him. Then he disappeared before their eyes and showed up in Jerusalem seven miles away. Yet in both places he ate with them and could be touched by them; he was not a ghost.
The resurrection of Jesus was not the simple resuscitation of a corpse, nor a near death experience, nor just a spiritual vision experienced by the apostles. It was the transformation and translation of the bodily form of Jesus into an immortal form. The resurrection of Jesus is about survival beyond death, which is beyond the realm of science.
The creed goes on to say that Jesus now “sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” which means that he is now part of the invisible spiritual realm. It also says “From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” This speaks of the future, which I will talk about in a future sermon when I preach on the final words of the creed that speak of “the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.”
The question I asked at the beginning of this message was: Is Jesus important? Or is he just one exchangeable figure in the list of religious figures throughout the ages? Does Jesus’ life matter? My answer is a resounding YES! His teachings are inspiring, but other spiritual leaders’ teachings are also inspiring. What is unique about Jesus is not his teachings but who he was – which I talked about last week – Christ, Son of God and Lord. And what he did - his birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension and return. Through Jesus is victory over our human condition of sin and mortality. Through faith in him we share that victory.
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