The Real Jesus

A Sermon based upon John 12: 20-36

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, Pastor

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

5^th Sunday in Lent,  March 25, 2012

Len Sweet tells how Tom Lind, a salesman from Montana, was making his rounds, traveling his regular route along the southern Oregon coast.  As usual he was in his older model pickup, piggybacked with his small camper.

Looking to continue his route in an eastern direction, Lind made a spur-of-the-moment decision.   He opted to take the scenic route.   Only a few miles on this blue highway, however, the elevation rose rapidly and good ol' Oregon drizzle transformed into swirling snowflakes. Tom was in his big pickup, so he kept going. But the snow kept coming.  Soon Tom found himself in the middle of a blizzard whiteout.

Forced to pull over, Tom stopped for the rest of the day.  By nightfall his pickup was a slightly discernible lump of white in a vast landscape of snow.   Still Tom wasn't terribly worried.   He was in his big pickup.  Surely, the road-clearing crews would be along soon.

What Tom didn't realize was that the scenic route he had chosen was closed for the winter.  He had come in the back way and did not see the signs that were posted.    This means that the Forest Service didn't maintain that road. They would not be coming his way until after the spring thaw.

But Tom didn't know that.   Convinced that someone would be along as soon as there was a break in the weather, Tom determined to do the smart thing: stay in his big truck.    As he waited and failed to arrive at his next sales appointment, family and friends, state and local police forces began searching for Tom. No one thought to venture up the completely snow-blocked route Tom had chosen.   So as the weather cleared and blue skies and sun shone down on Tom's trapped vehicle, he thought he was being smart and safe: he stayed with his big truck.

It seems impossible to understand now, but Tom stayed with that big truck for over eight weeks.  He kept a journal of his thoughts, his hopes, his fears, his considered options.    But still he sat in that big truck.   Eventually he grew too weak to have any real options anymore.    By Christmas he couldn't have walked out if he had wanted.   

At the end of January a group of back-country skiers inadvertently came across Tom and his safe haven big pickup truck.  Tom's journal revealed he had finally died sometime around January 15.   His shrunken, dehydrated body was still in his truck.   In trying to minimize his risks, Tom thought he was opting to stay safe.   It turned out, by playing it safe, Tom was opting out of life.

LIFE IS RISKY BUSINESS

We all want life, but what does it take to have a life?   Life can be risky business.  Think about all those armed forces in Afghanistan risking their lives for freedom.   Think about people who do dangerous jobs every day, just to make a living; tree climbers, utility repairmen, salesmen, truck drivers, bridge builders, construction workers and many others.   Most all of us are in harm’s way every day.    Like Tom and his big pickup truck, however, we may believe that seat belts, FDA regulations, security alerts, and smoke detectors can keep us safe.  But the truth is we're fragile, fallible, fractured creatures whose lives are always hanging in the balance.  Every one of us is only one breath away from eternity. Five seconds is all that separates us from forever.

Recently, I was laughing at a documentary about the Amish.  Please understand me, I wasn’t laughing at the Amish, but I was laughing at the person who was trying to understand the Amish.  The Amish live so close to the real world that they accept its dangers without fear.  They are willing to take risks, in order to follow the way of their faith and to keep their lives very simple and close to the land.   How they live in this high tech world may sound strange to us, but it is the norm for them.   Anyway, in this interview the person threatening to fine the Amish man because he wouldn’t put a Smoke Detector in the house he was building.  The Amish man said, “When the Lord is ready, he can take me.  I don’t have to have something that protects me, when I have the Lord protecting me.” 

While I would not agree completely with that Amish’s man’s approach to faith, I do believe that that Amish man understood something about life we often forget.  We are all at risk.  Life itself is risky business. The basic truth of creation is that all of us stand in harm's way every day of our lives.  We may no longer think of ourselves as part of the food chain, where animals are out to get us as they are out to get each other, but the mere fact we're breathing right now, puts us on the list to someday NOT be breathing.   To be alive is to be at risk.  To try to be alive tomorrow, to enjoy and maintain you life, means you have to take some amount of risk.   Every time I get on my bicycle, I understand that I could be killed.  I wear an identification bracelet to identify myself if someone finds me lying along the road.   To exercise as I do, means I have to assume a risk, and sometimes, I find it this risk refreshing as it is exhilarating.

JESUS IS RISKY BUSINESS TOO

In our text today, some Greek people take risks too.   They were Greek religious seekers attending the Jewish Passover festival in Jerusalem who have heard that Jesus has come to town.   They must have heard about Jesus somehow.   They should have also known that even though Jesus is still popular with some, he’s the enemy of others, especially those who are in power.   The Herodians, the Scribes, the Pharisees, and maybe even the Zealots are out to get him.  To associate with Jesus at this time and at this place in Israel’s historical moment, when some people were gunning for him, means these Greeks were willing to take a great risk.   Some disciples have already separated themselves from Jesus.   Jesus even wondered whether his own disciples would desert him.   But these Greeks guys are going against the grain and ignore which way the world is going and are willing to take the risk.   They approach one of Jesus’ disciples with a Greek name called Philip to make this famous request: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’   

How much are you willing to risk to be seen with Jesus?   Is that not also a good question for us?   Do you realize how risky it is to be with Jesus---even today?   Did they tell you that when you were baptized?   I wonder what they’ve been telling the Christians in Iraq, Iran, in Egypt or in Syria these days.   Do they tell them how risky it is?   What about here in this country?   How risky is it to follow or associate with Jesus here?     I know this may sound strange, but think about this for a moment.   We are privileged to live in a free country.   We can worship as we please, go to church as we please, live as we please, and this also means that we are free to associate with Jesus as we please.  That can be a good thing, unless, we have choose the wrong Jesus.    

Do you understand what I’m getting at?   To be able to worship as we please might mean we are worshipping the Jesus that pleases us, rather than worshipping the Jesus who calls us to live to please God.   What would happen if I suggested that many people in America today, who live in this wonderful, free, country, are doing just that---worshipping as we please without any real thought as to what it means to please God in our worship.   Could it be that the Jesus we are worshipping is not the “real” Jesus?   Could it be that the worship that pleases us may not necessarily be pleasing to God because we have not yet seen the real Jesus?  

You and I know that in this diverse, pluralistic, multifaceted world, we have many different ways of understanding God and trying to know Jesus.    How can we know that the Jesus we worship, who we have given our hearts to, and whom we claim to follow, is, in fact, “the real Jesus?”   Can we know?

Many years ago, in Seminary, one of my professors, Dr. Ben Philbeck, made a lot of preachers mad when he suggested that  most often our faith comes to us through our own perception of the truth rather than  through the truth itself.   We all define truth through our own filters, he told us.   Those preachers, who were looking for the kind of uninterrupted truth they could pound on the head of their members felt there preaching was threatened.   They didn’t like Dr. Philbeck’s teaching that truth is perceived as much as received.   But he went on to assure us that if we get are open to work for the truth (if we ask, seek and knock as Jesus commended, we will find).  But he also cautioned us to handle any truth claim with care and take time to search is out.  Truth is never automatic.   Things are not always as they appear.  How we perceive something tints everything we think, see and say.   

Perception is important in many things in life, isn’t it?  If I come to your farm and perceive a certain cow as a threat, then I’m going to feel threatened by the cow and the cow is going to sense my fear.   That could get me in a lot of trouble in the pasture or the barnyard.  But if I make sure the cow perceives that I’m in control, that I’m not afraid, then most likely that cow is going to keep their distance.  You who are farmers know what the power of perception can mean; perception can be more powerful  than reality.  As Jesus said, Faith can move mountains.  That half-ton piece of flesh called a cow could easily crush me or you, but if that cow perceives that I or you are the one in control, then you are more likely to be able to tell that cow where to go and it will go.   It is not reality, but perception that is most important. 

Perception is not only important on the farm, but it’s also important when it comes to Jesus.  The most important question about “seeing Jesus today” is “which kind of Jesus do you want to see?  Do you want to see the Jesus that pleases you, or do you want to see the Jesus who pleases God who has called us to live lives that please him?   Sir, ma’am, which kind of Jesus do you really want to see?   That’s the word from this text put to us:  Do we want to see the real Jesus, or just the Jesus we want to see?   Do we want to see the Jesus we want, who makes us feel good, warm, safe and sound, or do we want the Jesus who will make a great difference in our world, in our salvation and our daily walk of faith?  Do we want the Jesus we and the world needs to see?  If we still want to see the real Jesus, we must first ask what kind of Jesus do we care to see?   Is this the real Jesus we should worship, follow and serve, or is it the Jesus who pleases us?   

RISKING ALL TO SEE THE REAL JESUS

There are all kinds of biblical, historical and scholarly opinion about “the real Jesus”.  You can even find a book by that title which will try to tell you who Jesus really was.   What I can tell you in this short sermon,  is that among all the attitudes, opinions, ideas and theories about Jesus, none of them come close to getting as “real” and “personal” as the Jesus we find revealed here in the Bible.   Even the best scholars out there must admit, there is only one Jesus in the Bible.  They must tell you that there is no other Jesus to find, to discover, nor to see than the Jesus the Bible reveals to us, especially as revealed in this text found in the gospel of John.  Are you ready to see the “real” Jesus?  Brace yourselves.  

Why do I know that John paints a true picture of the real Jesus?    I know this because the real Jesus, who does the talking in John’s gospel, does not want to be seen, does not want to be popular, does not want to win, but he is willing to die and he wants to be followed in this death.   Do you hear his words, when these Greeks want to find and see him?  The real Jesus is not running a popularity contest.  The real Jesus does not do or say what is politically correct.   They real Jesus does not turn and make these men feel good about coming to him.   The real Jesus does not paint those Greeks, nor you or me a pretty picture of  success or wealth  that you’ll have if you become a Christian.  No, the “real” Jesus turns to those Greeks and to us and says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified….”   And what kind of Glory does Jesus seek?  “Very truly, I say to you, that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but it if dies, it bear much fruit.”   The real Jesus speaks, not of worldly power, nor of earthly riches, nor even heavenly glory, but the real Jesus speaks about the glory of the cross, the good of the sacrifice, the suffering of the cost of doing the right thing.  He tells us what it means to please God not to have God please you.    The great Westminster Confession says that the great purpose of human life is to “glorify and please God with this life we have been given.   Our life is never ours to do with as we please, but life is a gift that we are given so we will live to please God.  In his very next words Jesus tells those who would want to see the “real” Jesus, what it will mean if they really see him:  “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.  Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.”

A lot of Christians have spent a lot of ink and a lot of energy trying to get around these words which are so counter everything we want out of life.   It may surpise you, but you and are not supposed to get anything out of life---we are suppose to give everything to God.   This is how he gives us eternal life---when we give everything to him.   But instead of believing what the real Jesus says, we often try to figure out how to this is not what Jesus really said or meant. 

But I beg to differ.  This call to live to please God and nor to please ourselves is exactly what the “real” Jesus said and this is what the “real” Jesus meant to say, because, this is “who” the real Jesus is.   The real Jesus is the one who calls us to follow him, even when it hurts; because he follows God when it hurts.   He is the one who calls us to serve God, even when it is hard, because he is the one who follows God, even when it is hard.   Why would the real Jesus want us to do something that hurts and is hard?   Because Jesus believe we are created for a greater life that most of us settle for.   We are constantly called by God to rise above our human survival instincts?   Does this mean Jesus is sadistic?  Is Jesus a life-stealer—a joy-kill?   Let me say, loud and clear:   No way!   On the contrary, the “real” Jesus is not trying to take our lives from us, but he is trying to give our lives back to us.   He calls us to bear his cross with him and take the right kind of risks for doing the right thing.   Listen again to what the real Jesus says:  “Those who love their life, will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will KEEP IT FOR ETERNAL LIFE.”  The “real” Jesus wants us to keep our lives for eternity, but to do this, we can’t hold on to our lives and live them just for ourselves, only to save just ourselves, but we must learn to live our lives for others and even to lose our lives, fully and completely in God.     Only the “real” Jesus can dare talk to us like this.

This is how the real Jesus speaks and how the real Jesus looks, but do we want to see him?  It’s a lot easier to see Jesus as a nice, innocent guy who was killed on a cross, rather than the one who calls us to take up a cross.  It’s a lot easier to see Jesus as a prophet who lived and spoke God’s truth in ancient times, and even was killed for it, but not to see Jesus as the truth who sees our lives as they really are and calls us to crucify our own ambitions and lay them at the foot of the cross.   Do we see a Jesus who makes demands that we must follow, or calls us to get into the area of life and live and serve in ways that pleases God, or do we follow a Jesus who is only a nice guy who pleases us---pleases us because he offers us a ringside seat in heaven where we will do nothing in eternity there, because we did nothing for him here?  Which kind of Jesus do you see?

There is no doubt that then, as now, Jesus was and is the kind of Messiah nobody expected.  He was a Messiah who died and called upon his followers to take up their cross and follow him.  Few did.  Few were saved.  That’s how it happened and that’s how is still happens.  That’s why many are called, but few are chosen.   Few, too few are willing to seek, to see and to follow the real Jesus.   It’s just as hard now, as it was then.   But remember this word of hope: with God “all things are possible”.   Your life and your salvation depends upon which Jesus you want to see.   Will you get out of your big old pickup and take a risk?  Will you take the risk to see and live for the real Jesus?    Amen.

© 2012 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.