Who is Jesus and What Does That Mean for Us?

Matt 16:13-15  Jesus asks the Disciples who he is.  The answer has profound meaning and effect – throughout Jesus’ ministry, there are clues to who he is.  No better place to see this illustrated than in the miracles, feeding the 5’000, walking on water, the healing miracles etc.

Jesus is told that some people think he is Elijah or one of the other great prophets, like Jeremiah or maybe even Moses.  Lets take a look at some of these things. 

Elijah – 1 Kings Chaps 17-22 & 2 Kings 1&2.  David had died a century earlier.  Ahab now King and Jezebel a foreign Princess was his wife.  The Pagan God Baal - Jezebel tried to make him the only God of Israel.  Enter Elijah – 3 year drought to prove Baal could not control the elements – big confrontation between Elijah and Baal’s prophets, who were all lost.  Elijah has to flee to escape Jezebel’s wrath.  One of the places God tells him to go to a widow in Zarephath in Sidon. 

Parallel between Elijah and Jesus – The widow Elijah was lodging with was poor had hardly any food, flour and a few other things but fed Elijah.  She had a son, her only son, who died soon after Elijah arrived.  Elijah asked the woman to give him her son and took him upstairs.  Elijah begged God not to let the boy be dead and he stretched himself out over the young man three times and he cried out to God.  God heard him, revived the boy, returned him to his mother downstairs, who because of this believed that Elijah was a man of God and believed what he said. 

The location of the miracle in Nain is also possibly an allusion to the raising of the Shunamite woman’s son by Elisha because Nain is only a couple of miles north of Shunem (cf. 2Ki 4:). So the event and location are both allusions to Elijah and Elisha. 

With Jesus (Luke 7:11-17), when he raises the widow’s son at Nain, again it is the widow’s only son.  She’s already a widow, so in the eyes of Jewish people, she has no husband to look after her and now no son, what will she do.  Jesus meets her on the way into the town and has compassion for her.  The cortege is huge, there’s a lot of people, some might have been paid mourners, depending on how rich the widow was.  He tells her not to weep and just touches the bier and says, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ 

We know though don’t we, that Jesus when he heals people, he doesn’t just fix the symptoms, like a physician would.  The people he touches, also seem to have a renewed sense of peace and wholeness of soul that cannot be compared to anything else.

What about Moses?  Mountains traditionally are uninhabitable and inhospitable, they are where Gods live.  Moses goes up into a mountain to talk to God because God lives in the mountains and brings down the law.  Jesus goes up and delivers the Sermon on the Mount. 

Moses crosses the Red Sea with the Jewish people and into the Sinai desert and they immediately ask him what they are going to eat.  He feeds them with manna from God.  Jesus and his disciples had crossed the Sea of Galilee and gone to a quiet place for some rest, to a secluded place, known as the desert.  The people followed Jesus and it got late and the disciples said to Jesus, the people are hungry, what are they going to eat.  Jesus instructed the disciples to sit the people down in groups of hundreds and fifties.  Moses also divided the people (men) into groups of hundreds and fifties. 

Now we know what happened next don’t we.  Five loaves, two fishes, Jesus blesses them and breaks them and as he continues praying, he just keeps breaking and giving the pieces to the disciples to distribute.  5k people are said to have been fed but as with Moses, we know that there were also women and children there too, so the number may even have been bigger, because what was probably counted was heads of households.

The Dead Sea scrolls and the War Scroll in particular depict that around Jesus’ time, the Jews were expecting a great prophet and military leader.  Moses had freed them from oppression and slavery in Egypt.  Joshua had led them into the promised land.  Elijah had delivered them from Baal.  This man Jesus, can do all that Elijah and Moses did and more.  No wonder people were talking about him.  Is he Elijah, is Moses, is he Joshua. 

But there was more to come.  Philip spoke last week about Jesus walking on water.  The water was an untamed place, known only really to God and only controllable by God.  Jesus had the water under his feet.  Significance of having something under your feet, means you have control of it.  Tutankhamen – footstool.

This Jesus, not only does he walk on the water but he can also calm the storms and control the sea completely.  This has parallels with something the disciples would have recognised immediately. 

Psalm 107:23-30

Others went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters.  They saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.  For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves.  They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away.  They reeled and staggered like drunken men; they were at their wits' end.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.  He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.  They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven.

Matt 16:13-15, Jesus says to the disciples, ‘But who do you say that I am?’  Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’  Jesus tells Peter, ‘Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Parent in heaven.  He doesn’t say oh well done Peter recognising that.  Just like Jesus, he gives the glory to God, My parent revealed that to you, you couldn’t have got that without God. 

You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my Church.  The gates of Hades will not prevail against you.  What you bind on earth will be bound on earth and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’  Then he sternly told the disciples to tell no-one he was the Messiah.  If they had gone and told everyone, there would have been a riot, a full scale war and the Jews would likely have been annihilated by the Romans, there and then and his message would not have got out to all people. 

You can see why his followers believed him and had faith in him.  He had come along and literally blown away all of the major historical Jewish leaders and prophets.  He became incomparable in their eyes.  It is no wonder, Peter says to him, I know who you are.   

Some people might say and have said that all of Jesus’ ministry and miracles is just a literary device, a story, written after the fact, to ‘Big Up Jesus’, to make him into the Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, God incarnate, whatever we as Christians want to call him.

Jesus clearly tells Peter, not even Hades gates will hold you.  Jesus is clearly telling Peter, you understand where God is in all of this, you understand who I am and what that means for you and who you are in relation to God.  I can imagine Peter, the first time you realise something.  BIG EYES moments. 

But it’s not just Peter is it – all of us here and all out there, are people of God.  Jesus says to people doesn’t he, ‘This night, your very lives are going to be demanded of you’.  What matters in all of this is Peter’s and our own stance with God.  That’s what Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection are all about.  Where are we at with God.      

Isaiah 51:1-7 Talks about the blessings in store for God’s people that look to God.  ‘Listen to me, you who chase after righteousness, you that seek God, look to the rock from which you were hewn.  In all the places where you have difficulty, your wilderness, I will make it like Eden.  God wants to make for us, a place of perfection, wants to make our desert like God’s own garden..  Joy and gladness, thanksgiving, songs to God. 

God says again, Listen to me and cherish my words I will send you a teaching, my justice and a light to the nations.  I will bring my deliverance quickly.  My salvation is already with you.  Don’t place your trust in the things of this earth and the universe, they will wear away.  My salvation and justice is forever. 

This coming week I would like us all to think about and spend time in prayer with God about ‘Who do I say Jesus is’.  It’s something we know don’t we, we have a relationship with Jesus, we understand who Jesus is.  We can always learn something new about who Jesus is and what that means for us.