January 10, 2010 Sermon

Jesus As He Is
Matthew 3:1-17

Legend had it that the earliest Christians could not openly “wear” their faith.  Christians had become targets in Jerusalem and Rome.  Publicly following Jesus could get them arrested or even killed.  In order to find each other, they developed codes and symbols, among them the fish.  One undercover Christian might draw half of a simple fish outline and walk away.  Later another Christian might come along and add the other half.  This gave them a safer way to enter into the fellowship that Jesus had called his followers to enjoy.  But why a fish?

Jesus often used fishing to illustrate preaching points.  Fishing was a way of life in his native Galilee.  Jesus used everyday illustrations: bread, light, water.  Fishing became his way to dramatize that he wanted his followers to go out into the world and bring in more and more followers for him.  But the fish symbol had a deeper meaning.  Educated people in the Roman Empire spoke Greek.  The word in Greek for fish was “ichthus”.  The early Christians developed an acronym for ichthus.  “I” was the first letter in “Iasous”, their pronunciation of “Jesus”.  “Ch” starts the word “Christ”.  “Th” starts the word “Theos” or “God”.  “U” starts the word “Uios” or “son of”.  “S” starts the word “Sotarion”, Greek for “Savior”.  The letters in the Greek word for fish thus came to stand for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”. 

Jesus Christ.  Son of God.  Savior.  This neatly summarizes Jesus as He was—and is.  We find another excellent summary of his identity in the story of his baptism.  Matthew tells us the young man Jesus “came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.”  The young man, the human being Jesus came to John.  Let us never forget that Jesus had a human mother, Mary.  As the Nicene Creed emphasizes, Jesus had a fully human nature in every way except for sin.  We have just celebrated his birth.  Many religions stumble at the Christian belief in the birth of Jesus.  They ask how God, who by definition always has been, can be born.  Our reply can only be God planned it that way.  Mary bore Jesus.  She diapered him.  He needed to eat and to sleep.  He shared our human nature.  He felt our feelings.  He understands us from the inside out.  Iasous, Jesus, one of us, lived among us on this earth.

But the human being named Jesus also carried an ancient title, “Christ”.  Christ is not a name but a rank, a position of privilege.  It literally means “anointed one”.  Anointing appears in both testaments.  It refers to the practice of putting oil or water on a man during a ceremony that sets him apart.  God set Jesus apart to do a job.  Jesus Christ came as the Messiah, the Chosen One predicted by the prophets.  When John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching he said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  In other words, “You are God.  You are perfect.  Why do you submit to baptism at my sinful hands?”  Jesus sought baptism as a kind of anointing, a public ceremony that would set him apart as the Christ.  He told John to perform the rite “to fulfill all righteousness”.  Of old the Jewish priests had undergone ritual cleansing before performing their duties.  Now Jesus sought ritual cleansing, baptism, before performing his duties as the Christ.

Jesus Christ, son of God, savior.  Jesus shared our human nature.  Yet the fish formula tells us he was also the “son of God”.  Do not get confused here.  Son of God means God.  It means God born on earth.  “Son of God” was a phrase the Old Testament prophets to refer to God.  Jesus had all the power and permanence of God.  As he climbed up out of the River Jordan a voice from heaven announced, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  This is just a rather formal way of saying, “I love this guy like a son because he is my Son.”  In their synagogues the Jews heard this read once a year or more.  They could not have failed to understand its significance.  God was sending them a miraculous message telling them he had arrived among them.  Do we understand?

The significance of Jesus comes wrapped up in the final word in the fish formula: savior.  Jesus came to save us from our sin.  He came to deliver us to God eternally.  His baptism announced this through sight and sound.  The fish formula gives it to us in shorthand.  The longer version is this: because Jesus lived a human life but without sin, and because he died to pay the penalty God's perfect law demands for sin, and because as God he had the power to rise again from the dead, he saves.  All we must do to receive salvation is believe in him as the Son of God, the Christ, the Savior.  Jesus as He is means Jesus human and divine, the Christ, the Savior.

Later this week a Turkish prison will release Mehmet Ali Agca.  He has spent the past 28 years behind the razor wire, treatment he earned by trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.  Agca actually succeeded in shooting the pope four times, wounding him critically.  Bystanders tackled and held him until the police seconds later and took him into custody.  Two years before Agca had assassinated the editor of a moderate Turkish newspaper. 

When Pope John Paul II recovered from his wounds he publicly forgave Agca, who cited this as part of the reason for his conversion to Christianity.  Now he wants to get baptized.  He wants to get baptized on the spot where he stood when he pulled the trigger on the pope.  The Vatican has taken his request under advisement.  At this time the Holy See has responded that a priest/confessor definitely will counsel Agca and, assuming his conversion is sincere, baptize him.  Where and when remain up in the air.  A former Italian minister of communications has come out with a public condemnation of this possibility.  (He has also shared his outrage that American television networks have already handsomely paid Agca for the privilege of interviewing him, but that is a separate matter.) 

If Agca's confession of faith in Jesus is true, if forgiveness is real, if Jesus really did come to save by taking away the sins of the world, then the Vatican must baptize him.  And all who understand the true nature of Jesus should rejoice.  Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior means that God so loves the world that he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life.  This familiar passage does not read, “that whoever believes in him—except for Turkish murderers, or drunken neighbors, or any person whose sin we determine to be especially nasty—might not perish.”  And this is very Good News indeed.  Which one of us can claim to share Jesus' perfect, sinless identity?  Which one of us can claim to be the Christ?  Which one of us can save the world?  Only Jesus, and he came all the way down to us.  He came down to assume a human life.  He came down to the River Jordan to get baptized at a spot very near where it drains into the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the face of the earth.  Nobody is beneath him.  Not even you or me.

Jesus was a man.  Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One.  Jesus is the Son of God, or God himself.  And Jesus saves.  We may just be fish in the great big ocean of this world, but he has caught us.  Praise God!  Now, take that symbol and all it stands for out into that world.