It was a sunny spring day in the Roman province of Judea. But it wasn't a quiet one. Much commotion had been made over a so-called "king". The real king - Emperor Tiberius - was far removed from any of what was transpiring.
He didn't look like a king, worn as he was. He wasn't particularly handsome. In fact, on a good day one might have found him quite plain. But today, he was ragged. His body was bloody and bruised. He'd been flogged and beaten. He was clearly exhausted. And yet, he was made to carry the cross upon which he would be hanged.
Upon his head was some manner of...crown. It was a twisted mess of thorny brambles. Painful. A mockery of this so-called "king" who had no earthly kingdom and certainly had no way of saving himself.
When it became clear that he would be unable to continue carrying his cross, the soldiers found someone else to do it for him. Eventually, they came to the place where the deed would be done. He was stripped, nailed to the cross, and hoisted up for everyone to see. A sign above him read "The King of the Jews". Some gambled for his garments. Eventually, after much anguish and suffering, he died there, nailed to the wooden beams.
This is your God.
His name was Jesus, from the Greek Iesous. His Jewish name - the name He would have been called by those who knew Him - is Yeshua. It means "The LORD is salvation" or, more literally, "Yahweh is salvation". If that sounds familiar, it should, because the English form of Yeshua is Joshua. We don't know exactly when He was born, but the day I just described was probably April 3, A.D. 33.
During the first century, there were multiple streams of thought within Jewish communities. This period of time, often called Second Temple Judaism, was characterized by political turmoil. There had already been messianic movements, all of which had ended in failure. Zealots performed violent assassinations. Corruption and oppression were rampant. Different groups believed themselves to be the “true remnant” of God.
Not all Jews expected a Messiah, but many did. Their expectation was for a conquering, political liberator, in the line of David, to come and free them from the oppressive Roman occupation. Many Jews also expected a resurrection at the end of days. Then this Yeshua, this Jesus, stepped onto the scene, and He was a profound, excellent teacher.
In the modern Western world, we take many of His teachings for granted. But in the first century, His teachings were radical. He told men that they could not, in essence, divorce their wives for just any reason – it had to be adultery, and only adultery (Matthew 5:31-32; 19:3-11). That’s radical, because men had all the power, and women had none of it.
He taught that the gentle would inherit the Earth (Matthew 5:5), that peacemakers will be called sons of God (5:9), that the poor are blessed for theirs is the Kingdom of God (Luke 6:20), to love not just one’s neighbor but even one’s enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27, 35), to do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27), pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44), lend without expecting anything in return (Luke 6:35), and to turn the other cheek to one who commits violence against you (Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:29).
He warned that external righteousness is not enough – that what is within the heart defiles a person. Nothing that goes into a person can defile someone, but what is within and comes out, evil thoughts, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, murders, acts of adultery, deeds of greed, wickedness, deceit, indecent behavior, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness – all come from within and defile a person (Mark 7:14-23).
The greatest commandments, He said, were to love God (Matthew 22:37), first and foremost, and to love others as yourself (Matthew 22:39). God and others. And yes – even your enemies. And those were just some of His great and radical teachings. He was not only a profound and excellent teacher, but a great miracle worker and exorcist. Is it any wonder, then, that people began to wonder, “Could this man be the Messiah?”
And then…
He died.
Arrested. Betrayed by His own, and humiliated and executed by the Roman Empire.
But He did not stay dead. And that changed everything.
Suddenly, their understanding of the Messiah had to change. Their understanding of the resurrection had to change. Everything had to be understood through Jesus. Everything. The promises. The Scriptures.
God.
Yeshua means “Yahweh is salvation”. There is no more fitting a name for the Messiah than that God is salvation. Indeed, God Himself is the salvation for humanity. And we know that Jesus reveals the living God to us. Jesus said it Himself when He spoke to Philip, saying (John 14:9, NASB),
”Jesus of Nazareth”
The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.
It is not that Jesus is claiming to be the Father, but that Jesus literally reveals to us what God is like, who God is.
But He’s more than that. Because, as the writer of the Johannine Gospel tells us (John 1:1, 14),
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Word – the Logos – to the Romans, especially the Stoics, the rational, organizing principle of the cosmos, an impersonal, cosmic force that gave structure and meaning to everything. Jesus, then, the Gospel writer declares, doesn’t just reveal the Father, doesn’t just reveal God to us. He is God. He is the One who gives order and structure and meaning to the entire universe. Educated Romans and Greeks would have understood this radical departure, and the claim that the Gospel writer was making about Jesus.
Yet Jews would have also understood John’s callback to Genesis, where the very “word” of God was active and creative. Look for yourself (John 1:3-5, NASB):
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.
In Genesis, God penetrates the darkness (Genesis 1:2) with His voice and with light (v. 3), and each creative act is done according to the command of His voice, and each thing is named verbally by Him. He calls the light “day” (v. 5), for example. In verse 9, the text reads that He speaks (NASB),
”Elohim”
Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.
And it happened.
But the earliest Christian writings aren’t the gospels. They’re the epistles of Paul. So, what did Paul have to say about Jesus? In one of the Pauline letters, specifically to the Christians in Colossae, Paul attested that Jesus was (1:15, NASB), “the image of the invisible God” and that (2:9, NASB), “in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form”. In another, the epistle to the Christians in Philippi, he wrote that Jesus (Philippians 2:6-7, NASB), “already existed in the form of God” but “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.” And He (2:8, NASB), “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross.”
Don’t you see?
This is your God!!!!!
This suffering, humble man. This wise teacher who taught you to love Him and to love others, even your enemies. Is it any wonder that the writer of 1 John says that God is love (1 John 4:8 )?!
And He showed you how to love your enemies! Look what Paul says in his epistle to the Christians in Rome (Romans 5:8, NASB), “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Read it again.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
People quote John 3:16 all the time. Did you know that the Johannine Gospel reads as Jesus being the one who says it?! He’s talking to Nicodemus! John 3:16-18 (NASB) reads,
”Jesus of Nazareth”
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
While you were yet a sinner – at enmity with Him – He loved you and died for you. He sought you as a shepherd seeks after a lost lamb (Luke 15:1-7). He wanted you, not from lack but because He is love, so He purchased you with His own blood (Acts 20:28 )!
This is your God!!!!
…
Isn’t He beautiful?
Isn’t He wonderful?
Isn’t He glorious?
He didn’t look like a king that day. But He is one. The King of Kings. And the Lord of Lords. The one and only God.
”Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is One.”
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has revealed Himself to us in Jesus, in Yeshua. And He is love.
This is your God.
Amen.
