A GOOD WITCH OR A BAD WITCH?

Sermon #5 of the FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) Series

 

In the Wizard of Oz, Glenda the Good Witch asks Dorothy if she is a good witch or a bad witch?  She had to know.  Moreso, the Munchkins had to know.  They listened intently for Dorothy’s response.  What she was – her identity – had tremendous implications for them. 

 

Glenda was their friend who helped them.  The Wicked Witch of the East, who vexed & hexed them, was their enemy.  Now she was dead.  Before they rejoice in her demise, though, the citizens of Munchkinland need to know something of paramount importance about the person whose falling farmhouse crushed their nemesis.  Did Dorothy kill the witch in order to help the citizens of Munchkinland or kill her to take up where the Eastern Witch left off & be evil, too?  The answer to “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” held high stakes.

 

The persons of Roman-occupied Israel needed to know about Jesus, too.  Everyone was curious about him.  Centuries before Jesus, persons were expecting a Messiah to save the Jews from the evil Roman occupation of Palestine.  With this in mind, many individuals thought Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptizer, was the Messiah.  Needing to be sure, they asked John, “Who are you?” (Jn. 1:19).  Once Jesus did arrive on the scene, the queries continued with him.  After healing a paralyzed man, the Jewish religious leaders were greatly disturbed, & asked, “Who is this guy…?  Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Lk. 5:21).    Even three years into his ministry, when he triumphantly rode into Jerusalem on a donkey & palms were thrown in his path, parade-goers still inquired, “Who is this?”(Mt. 21:10).    

 

In John’s gospel alone, Jesus explains to people who he is using the phrase “I am” 24 times in 21 chapters.  “I am the bread of life” (Jn. 6:48).  “I am the light of the world” (Jn. 9:5).  “I am the gate for the sheep” (Jn. 10:7).  “I am the good shepherd” (Jn. 10:11).  “I am the resurrection” (Jn. 11:25).  “I am the way & the truth & the life” (Jn. 14:6).  “I am the vine” (Jn. 15:5).    

 

It’s an issue that Jesus confronts his whole life.  It continues today. 

 

Cameras taken to the streets asking passers-by who Jesus is pro-duce shrugs.  Multitudes admit they never heard of him.  Those of us who do know his name still ask, “Who are you, Jesus?”  It’s not merely an academic question, either.  We need to know for ourselves, for our very lives, like the Munchkins.

 

Jesus’ day & our day are both transitional ages, times of tremens-dous upheaval & change.  Our government, like that of ancient Rome, seems more powerful than ever, domestically & globally.  Confidence in things financial is lost.  Gaps between rich & poor widen.  No one can keep up with technology.  A rise in different religions & spiritual under-standings marks both days.  Much of existing religions was, & is, corrupt.  New diseases & threats of terrorism prove toxic to the emotions, as well as the physical body.  The traditional moorings seem to no longer provide a foundation.  Boundaries are violated.  The old rules are gone.  “It’s an upside-down world,” one old-timer often says to me.  There’s uncertainty, distrust, anxiety.

 

In such times as these persons seek answers.   They seek peace to quiet the anxiety they feel.  They seek good news.  Some will just hide out or check out.  Some will seek & find unhealthy measures, like alcohol & drugs.  Some will put their faith in cult-like leaders who give them pat, easy answers & simplistic solutions.  They’ll blindly latch onto all sorts of lies & ideas.  Others will seek & find healthy solutions, Jesus being the best one.  

 

“So, who are you Jesus?  Are you real?  Can I trust you?  How do I know what you say & do is true?  Can you speak to my mind, to my heart?  Are you good for me, my friends, my family, my life, & my world?” -- Those questions are our version of ‘Are you a good witch or a bad witch?’”

 

Fighting an angel of God on the shore, Jacob demanded, “Tell me who you are!”  That wrestling match may have been physical, but it was every bit a spiritual struggle, too.  The encounter forever changed who Jacob was.  Such an experience with the holy & with God would do that.

 

The first disciples confronted the same question about Jesus.  They were every bit as skeptical as we are.  We know that Thomas had his doubts.  So did Nathaniel, here in our lesson.

 

Nathanael knew that Jesus was a carpenter’s son.  There was noth-ing impressive about that.  Learning that Jesus’ hometown was Nazareth actually proved a detraction, a detriment.  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael sarcastically asks, provoking a confrontation with Philip.  His friend, however, doesn’t bite.  “Come & see,” Philip replies, repeating the same words Jesus used with him a short time earlier(Jn. 1:39).[1] 

 

With all of the questioning & confusion as to Jesus’ identity, some persons -- some of us, even -- wonder why Jesus didn’t just perform one of the miracles for which he was so famous & prove who he was.  That would satisfy folks.  We often want the same.

 

“Enough of this talk.  Just show us the goods, Jesus.”  We’re all from Missouri in that sense.  We all want to be shown the miraculous.  “Let me see a miracle in my life, & I’ll believe, too,” we say. 

 

The reason Jesus didn’t always provide a convincing miracle was because his miracles didn’t always prove convincing.  How many times in the gospels does Jesus perform a miracle, only for persons immediately afterward to ask for a sign or not believe their own eyes?  My goodness, he just did a miracle! 

 

For example: Jesus feeds an audience of 4000 with only seven loaves of bread & a few small fish, everyone is filled, there are leftovers (Mk. 8:1ff; Mt. 15:32ff)![2]  Yet, people ask for a sign!  Excuse me.  Isn’t that what he just did?  How much of a sign does one need? 

 

Another time, when Jesus walks on water, he has Peter join him (so Peter not only saw it, but did it, himself), only to have Peter react in disbelief (Mt. 14:22-32)!  Peter didn’t believe when he did it himself!  So, while the miracles themselves are real, they don’t always generate belief.

 

Faith in Christ truly is a matter of being open to Jesus.  Prayers for the Holy Spirit to soften us, inspire us, & convince us are 100% in order.  I mean, the eyewitness firsthand rejection of Jesus’ miracles says so much.  What more is necessary to convince persons?  Their eyes have seen, their ears have heard.  No wonder Jesus says, “Blest are those who do not see, yet (still) believe” (Jn. 10:29b).

 

Indian Christian thinker & writer, Ravi Zacharias, astutely notes how many miracles in the Bible involve water: the Flood, the parting of the Red Sea, turning water into wine, and the walking on water that I just mentioned.  He comments how many persons fail to see God’s hand in those super-natural events, & dismiss them.  He is not surprised. 

 

He goes on to ask how many of those same persons reject the original miracle of creating water in the first place?  They see water, & the rest of the universe, as not being dependent on a Creator.  Yet, two swallows of water (18 milliliters) contain 6 x 10 to the 23rd molecules of H2O.  How many molecules is that?  Well, an average computer can carry out 10 million counts/second.  At that rate, it would take that computer two billion years to count all the molecules in those two swallows of water.[3]  If we don’t see the miraculous in something as common as water, how will we see miracles in the uncommon?

 

For all the evidence, reason, logic, & other empirical data, there are persons who reject faith in Christ.  If their hearts are not open, their minds & wills remain closed.   We can understand Jesus’ frustration at those who reject the obvious when he enjoins, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine, otherwise they will trample them under foot, & maul you to boot!” (Mt. 7:6).    Elsewhere, he advises his twelve disciples, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house….” (Mt. 10:14).  Don’t make a pest of yourselves.  Acknowledge their free choice & move on.  Someone else needs to hear the message. 

 

 

If our hearts & minds & wills are open, what, as Christians, do we believe to be the most important thing about Jesus Christ?

 

I believe the fact that Jesus is fully God & fully human, as the scriptures & Nicene creed teach, is the key to understanding & appreciating him. 

 

“How can someone be both God & human?” we inquire, suspiciously.  The quick answer is that “Nothing is impossible with God”(Lk. 1:37).   The God who can fathom the creation of the universe can certainly figure out how to be both human & divine.  If, as Einstein claimed, matter & energy can be one & the same, though they seem so different, can’t Christ be God (energy?) & man (matter?)?

 

Beyond that, let’s consider some things about this unique combination of humanity & divinity that is Jesus.  Perhaps I cannot explain the physics, but I can make some sense of it & present the logic behind it all.

 

Take Jesus’ death & resurrection.  Only a human could be killed on an executioner’s cross.  You can’t kill an all-powerful God.  Yet, only a God could accomplish resurrection.  Humans cannot bring ourselves back to life once we’re dead.  That requires another power, one beyond ourselves.  Yet, Jesus died & was resurrected.  Jesus Christ being both human & divine explains such a puzzle.

 

Take the Bible’s clear statement that Jesus was tempted (Lk. 4:1-13).  Only a human can be tempted.  You can’t tempt God.  God already has everything.  There’s nothing to tempt God with.  Plus, the devil’s not so stupid as to tempt God.  So the devil would have to tempt the human that was Jesus -- his human nature that could be tempted.  Then again, in order for Jesus to overcome such a huge temptation to be the ruler of the world, it would take a God who already had it all to overcome that offer.

 

Let’s make it (Jesus) more personal.  We need a life leader/guide who knows first-hand what life is like & can relate us.  Yet, we also require someone who can rise above hard times & help us do the same.  We need someone to be like us, but ahead of/beyond us, too.  We need Jesus to be human & divine.

 

We need someone who knows & can relate to the painful effects of what sin & evil can do in our lives (like what happened to Jesus on Good Friday), but can also demonstrate how to forgive & triumph over those painful wounds (what happened on Resurrection Day).  We need Jesus to be human & divine.

 

We need someone who knows the joy of this life on earth & can show us how to live life to the fullest, but also someone who knows firsthand that an even better place awaits & can show us the way there.  Again, we need Jesus to be human & divine. 

 

Why is all of this important? Why is Jesus’ divinity & humanity a matter worth caring about?  Is this all just a lot of religious gobbledy-gook?  Why is this an issue?  Because, we become like that which we worship & value.  If we trust in money, our lives reflect greed.  If we live for fun as our prime motivator, our lives reflect recklessness & a lack of seriousness.  If we live for some vice, our lives spiral out of control.

 

So, if we worship a totally human god (if that’s not an oxymoron!), like the Roman emperors, Egyptian pharaohs, or contemporary cult leaders whom their subjects worship(ed), we cannot be led to anything beyond human experience.  If worshiping a human is as good as it gets, that’s as good as we’ll ever get.  When we limit our worship to other humans, & see humanity as being the epitome of life, we limit our conceptions & aspirations.  We limit our lives.  “If I am to be fulfilled, I must pursue a will that is greater than mine….”[4] 

 

In fact, we can imagine something greater than humanity & the human experience.  We know there’s something more & greater.

 

Yet, at that other extreme, a totally unhuman (divine) god, without any true appreciation of the human experience, would leave us exasperated at our human state.  “How could such an exalted deity relate to me & my life?” we would correctly wonder.  We’d always feel inferior, devalued, unloved.  We’d always be pleading with & placating such a god, a god who would always be beyond us & our grasp.[5]  

 

So, Jesus being human & divine takes who we truly are, as well as the best to which we can hope/dream/aspire, & wraps it all into one package.   Both concerns are satisfied.  Clearly, we are human, but we have the opportunity to be so much more, so much better, even to live the best life now & into eternity, the life which we were created & redeemed to live.  Humans cannot provide the best on our own, that’s for God to do. 

 

In Jesus Christ, we have both: humanity & divinity.  It’s brilliant.  Jesus is not mostly human with a few divine attributes.  He’s not mostly God hiding out in the guise of human flesh.  He is 100% God & 100% human.  The arithmetic doesn’t work, I know, but faith in Jesus Christ does.  Open your heart, your mind, & your will.  Give Christ a place in your life!  Give him a chance with you.    

In the Name….                 Copyright 2010 by G.D.Knerr at Lansdale, Pa.  All rights reserved.


[1] The Samaritan woman spoke the identical invitation, too, when she explained her encounter with Jesus to disbelieving townsfolk (Jn. 4:29).

[2] See other instances in which Jesus accomplishes a supernatural act & persons question his authority, as in the Cursing of the Fig Tree (Mk. 11:12-33; Mt. 21: 18-27); & the Healing of the Blind Man (Jn. 9: 1-41).

[3] Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message, p. 81, Nashville: Nelson, 2000.

[4] Zacharias, p. 85.

[5] This happens in many other religions.  Even church-going persons who feel this way about themselves & suffer from perennial low self-esteem, fail to comprehend Christ’s humanity.  Yes, they see an all-powerful, even wrathful Father/Parent/God, but don’t see Jesus as their brother, who loves them more than anyone, who dies for them to give them that new, best, & eternal life.