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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Lots of people are looking for a savior, as they always have. Lots of people eventually find one, in various shapes and forms, as they conduct their earnest searches. Sometimes they cling to their savior for a while, only to be disappointed when it doesn’t quite pan out to meet their wants or their expectations. Sometimes they shift their attention to new saviors, or stick with their old ones, simply modifying their desires so that they get a good fit. It goes on all over the world, on every continent and in every time zone. As a matter of fact, it goes on in every single human heart.
Even among those who have come to be aware of Jesus, the looking—or at least the shifting of expectations—goes on. If you’re looking for Jesus today, you’ll certainly find plenty of different expressions of Him. Some prefer a Jesus who will make their lives comfortable and successful. There’s one like that; he’ll give you family harmony and financial prosperity. Just follow the guidelines and principles that’ll be shown to you in the DVD they’ll be happy to send for a donation of fifty dollars or more.
Others want a more personal Jesus. A Jesus who will help them feel emotionally enriched, at peace with who they are, and able to live happy lives of quiet strength. A Jesus who will help you pull out and use that power you have within yourself to overcome doubt and weakness, to bring your mind and spirit and body into balance, so that the world around you doesn’t get you down.
Still more want a Jesus who is very tolerant and completely open-minded. This Jesus looks on with a pleasant smile as people express their own beliefs in their own ways. Never mind what God has revealed to us in His Word, they say. Their faith doesn’t revolve around “Thus says the Lord,” but depends upon, “Well, what I think about Jesus is…”
Just so long as they are sincere, and have a desire to build a strong relationship with the divine, their Jesus doesn’t care if they worship at a church or a synagogue, a mosque or a bonfire, out in their bass boat or riding in a golf cart. This Jesus hears all prayers, even those offered up to trees or through the channels of self-proclaimed prophets. He’s an equal-opportunity, politically-correct Jesus; all roads, all beliefs, are equally valid and perfectly acceptable.
If any of these sound familiar or attractive, you’re not alone. Whether it’s Jesus the life coach, Jesus the spiritual guru, or Jesus the group hugger, people everywhere build up their own ideas and expectations on just what they want and need from a savior.
No matter which Jesus you choose, or design and build for yourself, though, you’re getting the same thing: a false Jesus. A Jesus who isn’t the Son of God, but the son of perdition. A Jesus conceived not by the Holy Spirit, but by lies. Born not of the Virgin Mary, but of the harlot of hell, Satan.
The devil has a lot of tools, but one of his most successful is wearing the mask of the false Jesus—the Jesus people want, rather than the Jesus they truly need.
Satan is quite happy with those who believe in a false Jesus. In fact, for him it’s as good as if someone doesn’t believe in any Jesus at all. There really isn’t any difference. There is only one Christ, there is only one Jesus, there is only one Savior, but there is a world full of imitations. And each and every fake Jesus will be more than happy to take your hand, and walk with you and talk with you, and lead you safely and comfortably through the world until you hear the soft words, “Well done, my good and faithful fool,” spoken not by the Father in heaven, but the devil below.
When Jesus asks His disciples in our Gospel lesson today, “Who do people say that I am?” they provide Him all sorts of possibilities. Maybe He’s Elijah, returned from heaven, since that prophet was known not to have died a natural death. Maybe He’s John the Baptist, somehow released from prison, preaching that same Gospel of repentance and forgiveness.
Maybe He’s some other prophet, finally come to Israel after an absence of hundreds of years.
Put on the spot, though, Peter confesses what all those who know the true Jesus confess: “You are the Christ.” And so He is. He’s not the Jesus of many faces, of false faces. He’s the Jesus of one face. The face that nursed at Mary’s breast. The face dripping with water from the River Jordan as He is baptized into fellowship with us all. The face glowing with the glory of God on the Mount of Transfiguration.
It’s also the face set toward Jerusalem, the face that will be kissed by Judas in Gethsemane, and slapped by the Jews at His trial. His is the face that is defiled by the spit of the ungodly, and finally is the face splattered red with the sacrificial blood that dripped from His brow, pierced and torn for you with the thorns of a mocking crown. This face—and only this face—is the face of God which saves you, forgives you, and shines upon you and gives you peace.
This face—and only this face—is the face of God that was preached by Peter and Paul, and is preached yet to this day in the faithful Church. For the Church proclaims this face of Jesus as the only one which truly meets the needs of all.
This isn’t welcome news to some. It’s enough to cause anger among many. It’s as scandalous today as it’s always been, to be so particular about Jesus; so narrow of mind. Christians have the audacity to say this is the only face, the only name, by which we can be saved. This exclusivity is not the inclusiveness and happy harmony that many so-called spiritual people want to hear. Preaching that Christ alone saves sinners makes some people roll their eyes and others shake their fists.
But Jesus is the only face of God we can know. In Jesus alone, we have forgiveness. In Jesus alone is there a way out of the shadow of death, the only way to escape the deceptions and dead-ends of the devil which would lead us into hell’s eternal blackness.
“We preach Christ crucified,” Paul wrote, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.” And so it remains. These are the words printed on the pages of God’s Holy Word, and placed into the mouths of God’s messengers yet today. “We preach Christ crucified.” These words are as sweet as heaven, yet as bitter as hell. Their sweetness comes from the fact that in hearing and digesting them, you taste the honey of salvation. But they may give you a bitter taste along the way, for in taking these words and chewing on them throughout your life, you will be continually at war with the world of men and the power of the devil. They both hate what these words say.
Even Peter can’t accept them at this point. Jesus throws all His cards on the table: suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection, and Peter folds. He takes Jesus aside, rebuking Him for making such an awkward, unpopular statement. “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus replies.
An uncrucified Christ—that sort of Christ, Peter can accept, you can accept, the world can accept. There’s a certain seductive attractiveness to a Jesus like that. But it’s a temptation that leads only to death, for it’s just another way of saying, “Did God really say…?” It’s the temptation that wants us to be silent about the crucifixion, to steer clear of the scandal of the cross.
Sure, we could pretty up Jesus, make Him into a Precious Moments figurine that is cute and huggable. We could dress up Jesus in always-pleasant, Top-40 music and cool pop-culture terminology to appeal to those who prefer shallowness and entertainment to substance and truth. We could hand out Christ’s body and blood to everybody, regardless of what they believe. We could even hold hands and pray with those whose faiths reject the crucified Christ.
If you uncrucify Jesus—if you hit the “Rewind” button on the drama and horror of His passion and death—you can package a Jesus who is easy for people to accept, a Jesus who appeals to a broad segment of society, a Jesus who is politically correct for His openness and tolerance of all beliefs, all lifestyles. That’d be a very easy gospel to preach, and to hear. It’s an easy Gospel to live, too. And many flock to that gospel, all around us.
There’s only one problem with that gospel: It’s not the Gospel which saves. It’s not the Gospel the Church is called to proclaim, now and to the end of time. The Gospel that saves is a bloody Gospel, dripping from the face and body of only one kind of Jesus.
“He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again.”
Here, sinners, is your life. Here, Church, is your Gospel. The Son of Man must suffer many things, because the God of love will have it no other way than to reclaim you. He won’t leave all His Adams and Eves exiled from paradise. He won’t let Abraham plunge the blade and end the life of his promised seed, the child of hope and laughter. He won’t leave Joseph down in the pit where Israel’s other sons threw him. God’s love is a love of rescue, and it comes to us.
The Christ will suffer many things, indeed. He will suffer them for you. Bring on the bloody sweat, the vinegar, the gall. Bring on the hands that bind, the hands that slap, the hands that nail, the hands that bury. Bring on the lies of the priests, the mocking of the crowd, and the silence of heaven. He suffers many things. For the joy set before Him, He endures it all, all for you. In your salvation is His joy.
In His rejection, you find acceptance by the heavenly Father. In His death, you receive life. In His burial, your sin is swallowed up in the ground like the golden calf in the desert, the stranglehold of death broken forever. Sin and death and hell have their day, it seems—but it only seems. In reality, the crucified Christ destroys their power forever, bringing to you forgiveness, life, and everlasting joy.
This, then, is the Gospel. There aren’t any others, for only this Gospel is necessary. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He didn’t leave business managers, pop psychologists, group dynamics counselors, or diplomats behind to carry on His work. He left behind apostles, equipped with His Word. Into their hearts and minds, and out of their mouths, flowed the Gospel, the very blood of His sacrifice. And in their preaching, and in the conveyance of His Word to that generation and every generation since, the blood of this Gospel, the sacrifice of Christ crucified, was sprinkled and spread to all who might hear it.
In that blood is your life. For you, for your family, for this Church, and for all the world, this blood is for you. Every drop is an ocean of forgiveness. It washes you in a bloody cleanliness that protects you like the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of the Israelites. It is sprinkled onto the altar of your heart and upon the mercy seat of your soul in the temple of your body—a body which is now God’s own, so that you can enter the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem yet to come.
This blood makes devils retreat. It moistens the lips and parched throats of those who thirst for righteousness. It quenches and extinguishes the fires of sin that burn within you. It is the blood of the Church, the blood of the cross, the blood of the one and only true Jesus. Amen.
