May 21, 2006 Sermon

Is Jesus Divine?
John 10:22-39

For weeks before the film opened, many Christians dreaded it. Christian radio buzzed with anger against the author of the book on which the movie was based. Celebrity pastors denounced it on the Today Show and Larry King. Mega churches organized picket lines at theaters.

Was this movie the Da Vinci Code, which opened this weekend? No, it was The Last Temptation of Christ, which came out in 1988. But unless you happened to pastor a church twenty years ago you probably don’t remember the outcry. Based on a number one best-seller, The Da Vinci Code movie scares some Christians. Not me. I have read the book by Dan Brown. I thoroughly enjoyed it as a novel. A work of fiction. Tens of millions will see the movie and its decidedly unchristian views. Many will enjoy it. But a year from now only a few will care.

Like The Last Temptation of Christ, The Da Vinci Code will expire with its fifteen minutes of fame. I preach not against the Da Vinci Code. I don’t have to. I preach, instead, on the great truths of Christianity it questions. I welcome the opportunity to deal with these truths. I am happy that books and movies make us think about them. The question before us today, a question at the heart of the Da Vinci story-line, is this: was Jesus the Son of God or just a remarkable human being?

Scholars argue about when John wrote his Gospel. But no serious student of the New Testament claims that John could have written later than 90 A.D., or approximately sixty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Most believe he wrote much earlier, perhaps around 50 A.D., about twenty years after the crucifixion. Either way, John’s Gospel appeared quite early in the Christian era. John saw and heard Jesus. Some of his words about Jesus come from other eyewitnesses, but none of them come from third- or more-hand accounts. John was early and John was close to Jesus.

Our passage begins, “It was the feast of Dedication at Jerusalem ; it was winter.” John tells us exactly when and where this episode happened. Jesus walks in Solomon’s Temple . His public works have given him celebrity. People ask, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” They ask Jesus the question we ask today: is he the Son of God or just a remarkable human being?

Jesus answers, “I told you and you do not believe.” Aye, there’s the rub. We have approached this issue as though it were an academic question. We ask, “Can we use historical and textual evidence to prove that Jesus is divine?” But the correct answer to the question, “Is Jesus the Son of God?” is not, “Yes” or “No”, but “I believe.” It is a matter of faith. Jesus continues, “I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.”

Well who wants to be a sheep? Sheep lead boring lives. Sheep stand around in nasty fields all day, in all sorts of weather. Sheep have no known thoughts of their own; they simply follow wherever they’re led. Every once in a while they get fleeced. Who wants to be a sheep?

The people listening to Jesus that day in the Temple did not like the sheep analogy. They particularly did not like him implying they did not belong to the flock of God. They started gathering rocks. They meant to drag him out of the city and into a pit. They meant to kill him with those rocks. But Jesus stops them with a question, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?” He wants to focus on what he has done with the power of his Father, God.

But the people cannot let go of Jesus’ words. They accuse him of blasphemy, of lying about God. They tell him, “You, being a man, call yourself God.” So we come back to the main question. Is Jesus human or divine? John tells us Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” and, “the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Jesus claimed to be the son of God. To his Jewish audience this absolutely meant he claimed to be God. He equated himself with God. He did not prove it. He claimed it. Like those people who heard his voice and saw his face we must therefore answer the question with a faith statement. Either we believe Jesus is the Son of God or we disbelieve.

Dan Brown, author of the Da Vinci Code, has a web site. On it he calls himself “a Christian and a student of all religions.” But he does not come clean on whether he believes in Jesus as the Son of God. Neither do the characters in his novel. That is fine. They are fictional. They do not threaten us. Mr. Brown is entitled to his own beliefs and opinions, whatever they may be. This is a free country, after all. In fact, God has designed Christianity as a free religion. God gives us the free decision of whether to believe in Jesus as the Son of God.

God/Jesus could have compelled our belief—or could He? The Roman Emperors of Jesus’ day compelled all their subjects to pay a yearly tax with official Roman coins with the Emperor’s image on one side. As people paid the tax they would have to swear an oath of belief that the Emperor was the son of the gods. Do you suppose those taxpayers truly believed the Emperor was divine? Or did they just go along to get along, just pay and keep their mouths shut, keep any doubts they might have had to themselves?

Faith cannot be compelled. Faith can only be earned. And we still face the faith question. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe Jesus is divine or human?

The word “divine” has lost steam. It no longer means “godlike”. Now it means wonderful or lovely, as in Bette Midler’s nickname, “The Divine Miss M.” We need to reclaim the word. And we need to ask ourselves whether we believe Jesus is divine. Is Jesus God? Your answer to that question affects your answer to every other important question in your life. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?

God has given you the freedom not to believe in Jesus. Do you believe? I have watched people die in peace because they do. Even when the dying process has taken months their faith has kept their hearts at rest.

Do you believe? I have watched friendships rebound from horrible fights because people have found the ability to forgive in their faith. Do you believe in Jesus as the Son of God? Your answer matters.

In the Gospel of John we see that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, and he did wondrous things that supported his claim. But he never took the choice to believe, or not to believe, away from us. Which do you choose? You answer will affect how you view the Da Vinci Code. It will also affect far more important things, like how you live your life and where you spend eternity.

Choose to believe. Pray to ask God to help you believe. Jesus called attention to his actions, to what he did to show his divine power. The time has come to take action ourselves. If you have never committed yourself to Christ, if you have never been able to state your faith in Him as the Son of God, the time has come to do something about it. I ask those among our elders who have the training and the spiritual gifts to counsel new Christians to stand right now. Please take a look around. Find the faces of those whom God may have chosen to help you believe in Jesus. Find each other up in front here after our service ends. Enter faith.

And if you do believe in Jesus as the Son of God, praise God!