The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
November 24-25, 2007

Who Jesus Was and Is—
The Jesus of History and the Jesus of Faith[1]
Luke 23:33-43 

We just heard a portion of Luke’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion. In Luke’s Gospel, we get at least two main facts not found in the accounts of the other Gospel writers. First, Jesus says from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And second, Luke offers the exchange between the two thieves leading to Jesus’ offering forgiveness to one of those crucified with him, promising, “Truly I tell you, today, you will be with me in paradise.” 

This sort of detail found in Luke and not in Matthew, Mark or John brings up a question, “Which account of the crucifixion is the right one?” For the early church, the answer was not that all the Gospels say the same thing. The answer for the early church was that to understand who Jesus was we need the four different portraits each from a slightly different perspective created for a different intended audience.  

Such historic questions are to be expected. As people of faith who say we believe we believe in the empty tomb, we therefore profess faith in a historic life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is not just a noble idea, but a real historical person. So, we should expect that many will want to ask further historical questions. As we consider on this day Jesus Christ as the King of Kings, then I think a few historical questions are in order as the historic data on Jesus’ life does not point to a king, but to a teacher killed as a criminal. 

There have been a few major attempts to reconstruct the Jesus of history. The first came with the enlightenment and the rise of science and history in the 17^th and 18^th centuries which gave rise to a number of authors writing a Life of Jesus by the 19^th century. These attempts to create a fuller picture of who Jesus was were dealt a stunning rebuke by Albert Schweitzer. Before he became a doctor, medical missionary and Nobel Peace prize winner, Schweitzer was a New Testament scholar.  

In 1906 at the age of 31 Schweitzer wrote, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. He concluded that when we look down the well of history, we don’t see the image of Jesus shining back. We see our own image. He felt that everyone who looks for the Jesus’ of history describes their own ideal person. Schweitzer felt that the Jesus of History was unusable to the church. He felt this so strongly that he left New Testament scholarship behind, studied medicine and went to work in Gabon, Africa as a medical missionary. It was Schweitzer’s way to put behind him the Jesus of history to serve the Lord. He said he went to Africa to become, “a fisher of men.” 

But scholars being scholars, The New Quest, was founded by those who wanted to focus on sayings and not deeds. As this group of scholars considered what Jesus said, they valued more highly those sayings that were dissimilar to Judaism and to Christianity assuming that if what Jesus said didn’t sound like other Jewish teachers or the early Christian church then the saying must be authentic. They also looked for multiple sources for each quote as a greater sign of reliance.  

A later subset of this New Quest is the well-published group, known as The Jesus Seminar who cranked out books from the early 1990s until today. The Jesus Seminar took a vote and decided that few sayings in the Bible are authentically from Jesus. The group rejects Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as being reliable sources for understanding the historical Jesus. They give preference to the Gospel of Thomas, which orthodox Christianity had rejected, as that work is a collection of sayings, which they value more than stories of a life. The group sought to uncover the real Jesus who has been described by the seminar members as a “spirit person,” “subversive sage,” and a “social prophet.”  

There has more recently been a Third Quest for the Historical Jesus that is reconstructing the first century Palestinian social and political context. The question is, “What could Jesus have thought given his background and setting?” For those in this Third Quest, sayings of Jesus that are plausibly Jewish are no longer discarded, but given precedence. Though I agree with them about the Jewishness of Jesus, I also agree with Schweitzer about this latest work as that of the Jesus Seminar and others, that their view of the historical Jesus says as much about the scholars as it does about Jesus. 

I will stop with the tour of scholarship now to say that what these scholars largely agree on is that Jesus was a real person and they further say:
·         Jesus was a Jew from Nazareth in Galilee
·         Jesus was baptized by John and their two ministries were related in some way
·         Jesus was known as a miracle worker
·         Jesus preached about reversing the world order
·         Jesus was put to death around 30 a.d. for insurrection
·         Jesus followers claimed he rose from the dead and this resurrection had a profound effect on those followers           

There are other historical points of agreement as well. All of this comes as a surprise to some who want to dismiss Jesus as merely a myth. And while you may not have run across the scholarship to which I refer, you have certainly run across its offspring, including The DaVinci Code and similar works of fiction. Yet despite attempts to tear apart faith with research, the scholarship has found more proof even as they disagree on the importance and meaning of the data. That Jesus was a real historical person whose movement continues to this day is a fact undiminished by historical research. We know that Jesus lived, taught, and changed lives.  

We have four Gospels, including today’s unique perspective on Jesus’ crucifixion, not in spite of their differing pictures of Jesus, but because of them. The earliest Christians felt that none of these portraits of Jesus sufficed alone. They were convinced that together, the Gospels give accurate picture of who Jesus was. Through those Gospels we meet Jesus of Nazareth whose message is just as life-changing today as when he first preached it.  

Beyond the scholarship, we are interested in the Jesus of faith as well as the Jesus of history. Jesus is encountered meaningfully today in scripture, in our lives, and in the acts of prayer and worship. As we gather, we know that who Jesus was might be interesting to consider. But who Jesus is matters much more. For if Jesus was a great teacher, then we can only learn from his teachings. If Jesus was and is the Son of God, then we can also come to know him through worship. This possibility is pointed to by our own experience with Christianity. For we know that lives are still changed for the good today by Jesus and for those whose lives are changed it is current experience with Jesus they cite, not historic documents or archeological investigations. 

Had we read a further in Luke’s account of Jesus’ life, we would have found what happened next. Following Jesus’ resurrection two followers left Jerusalem that Easter evening. They were dejected that Jesus had not been who they thought he was. They had hoped for the one to redeem Israel, Instead, Jesus was dead.  

Jesus joined those two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. Perhaps because they were so sure that Jesus was dead, they did not recognize him. Whatever the reason, he walked and talked and explained the scripture to them. But it was only later, after they invited him in to supper, and Jesus took, blessed, broke and gave out the bread that recognition dawned. They said that they knew Jesus in the breaking of the bread. We too gather to take, bless break and give the bread of communion. In doing so, we count on not just the historical reality that there was a man named Jesus. We also count on the theological reality that Jesus was and is the second person of the Trinity. We also count on his being present to us in the breaking of the bread. 

It is this Jesus who comes to us in our worship and in the bread and wine of communion who is the King. Not the Jesus who was, but the Jesus who was and is the King of Kings. For this feast of Christ the King has nothing to do with Jesus’ life and ministry on earth. He did nothing that would lead to us calling him King. Calling Jesus the King of Peace means acknowledging that who he is matters as much as who he was. For Christ the King is a statement of faith made by those who have made Jesus the king of their hearts.  

He reaches out to each of us now just as he did while dying when he reached out in love to those who killed him saying, “Father, forgive them.” And just as he held out the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to the thief who showed faith while dying on the cross next to Jesus, so he holds out that same hope to us. 

Whether Christ the King means anything to you depends on whether you have made him the king of your heart. And whether you want to take that step for the first time or just again and again, we will offer an altar call. If you are a baptized Christian, you are invited to come forward for the bread and wine of communion praying that Christ the King will be made known to you once again in the breaking of the bread. If you are not yet baptized, you are encouraged to come to the altar as well, crossing your arms to let us know that you want to receive a blessing and we will pray a brief blessing prayer for you. 

It is the same call to come to the altar we offer each week as we present the bread and wine of communion trusting that Christ the King will be known to you in the breaking of the bread. 

Amen.