When Jesus asks His disciples in Matthew 16, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They come up with answers like “John the Baptist” and “Elijah”. How do you think people would respond if we did a man-on-the-street type interview and asked people who they thought Jesus was?
When I’ve seen that kind of interview done before, the results are usually positive. People will say that Jesus was a great teacher. They’ll say that He was enlightened. That He saw things in people that they didn’t see in themselves. They will maybe even try their hands at summing up His teaching as “to love one another” or something else that resonates with them. I ran into Jesus in a book the other day and was surprised that the atheist author referred to Him as “the Christ,” a title that seemed to mean little more to the author than a nickname for this rabbi from Nazareth.
But the word “the Christ” in Hebrew, “Mesiach,” means more than just a nickname for Jesus. It contains the idea of being chosen. Chosen for what? To save humanity from their sins. To die on the cross and to raise again. And that choice was easy and hard all at the same time. It was easy because the Father knew that no one on earth could fulfill the requirements. No regular human being could be chosen. Instead, God had to make a hard choice – the choice to choose His own Son to be that chosen one.
So who is Jesus? A part of the answer is that He is a great teacher. A part of the answer is that He is enlightened. A part of the answer are the things that people can usually get on their own. But they need a Christian to explain to them the rest of the story, that He is the chosen one, the Messiah, the Christ.
It’s a lot of fun to ask people who they think Jesus is. The conversation is a good one usually. Try having it this week where it seems appropriate and see if you can explain that Jesus is all of those things, but also that He is the chosen one.