Mark 1:22 NIV
The people were
amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as
the teachers of the law.
What Do You Think of Jesus?
I make it a regular practice of weighing myself on
our bathroom scale. Recently it started
indicating that I weighed 120 pounds, 17 pounds and 3.8 pounds. Now I am more than glad to lose weight but
that was a bit extreme and so I changed the batteries but it continued to give
me similar readings. Why it was so
important to me to know precisely how much I weighed as if where my belt
notched did not give me all the information I needed, I can’t say. Maybe it is a mild form of masochism; perhaps
I needed a fresh dose of bad news each day.
I was determined to get an accurate measure of my weight though, so much
so that I bought a new scale. I was very
happy to read that with the new scale, I apparently had lost 75 pounds. Unfortunately, my belt told me that could not
be the case. Off I went back to the
store to return my new scale so that I could have an accurate measure of one
important area that I judged myself.
One of the characteristics of being human is that we
regularly measure not only ourselves but more often others on a wide range of
scales. Is he smart? Is she unsophisticated? Is he creative? Is she strong willed? What is she really? Talented?
Funny? Depressed? A good conversationalist? Honest?
Caring? Egotistical? Full of love?
When it comes to Jesus, there is perhaps no one in history who has been
categorized as often. Yet, what do we
really know about Him? If you were
hanging out with Jesus at Starbucks, what sort of impression would He leave
you? He was a carpenter and perhaps
poor. Would that be what struck
you? Would you have considered Him
charismatic or witty or quiet and thoughtful?
Today we will consider just one aspect of Jesus and that will be His
mind.
Early in Jesus’ life He famously camped out in the
Temple of Jerusalem for perhaps an entire week and met with the Jewish teachers
there. Luke described Jesus’
conversations with the teachers as being eye-opening for all who were a part of
the discussions. Every year his
parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to
the Feast, according to the custom.
After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy
Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they
traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives
and friends. When they did not find him,
they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the
teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his
understanding and his answers. (Luke 2:41-47 NIV) Clearly, Jesus was a mentally sharp young man
who gave great thought to the Scriptures and had a well-organized mind. The best teachers in all of Israel were at
the Temple and they were impressed by Jesus’ thinking.
Nearly two decades later Jesus taught on a hillside
and a large crowd came to hear what He had to say. This extended teaching session became later
known as the “Sermon on the Mount”. At
the time, Jesus’ fame was growing but not many yet had heard Him speak. When He got finished, the crowd was in awe of
what they heard. When Jesus had
finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because
he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
(Matthew 7:28-29 NIV) No one, as far as
we can tell from ancient writings, came close to Jesus’ insight into ethics and
moral decision-making. His teaching that
day was pure genius. Like the crowds, we
too are amazed by how He interpreted Scripture and the way He presented a
complete approach to life.
The Gospel of John gives a similar assessment of
Jesus’ effect on others. Temple guards
who had been sent by the priests to arrest Jesus were not psychologically
prepared for the task. Their “mistake”
was they took the time to listen to Him preach.
When Jesus finished, rather than arrest Him, they returned to the
priests with genuine awe at what they heard and reverence for the one who
delivered the message. When asked why
they had not seized Him, their response was not what the priests expected. "No one ever spoke the way this man
does," the guards declared. (John 7:46 NIV) The Pharisees who had sent them were not
impressed by the guards’ assessment of Jesus’ sermon. Certainly we can guess that the guards
themselves were not expecting to come away as captivated by Jesus’ words as
they were. The guards were not
“spiritual groupies”. They were full-blown
skeptics who found Jesus’ mind captivating.
There is a fascinating response of Jesus in Matthew
22 to those who did not believe in a resurrection from the dead. The ones who
argued against a resurrection were influential and no one had been able to
refute them because they refused to turn to anything other than the first five
books in the Bible as authoritative on the matter. Bible scholars at the time who believed in
the resurrection could not find a scintilla of evidence for it in Genesis to
Deuteronomy. Jesus however quoted from
Exodus God’s arresting call to Moses at the burning bush as proof of life after
death. But about the resurrection of
the dead — have you not read what God said to you, “I am the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of
the living." When the crowds heard
this, they were astonished at his teaching. (Matthew 22:31-33 NIV) And why not?
Who would have ever considered such an argument as that? Jesus did though.
Let us look at one final example of Jesus’ mind at
work. John 8 is the explosive account of
Jesus being brought the woman caught in adultery. The background of this is fascinating. The text in the Greek indicates that the
woman had been caught in the very act of adultery; as she and her “lover” were
in bed. To catch them so, especially
given the very delicate circumstance of committing adultery and not wanting to
be caught indicates that somehow the Jewish leaders who brought her to Jesus
knew in advance what the pair were about to do and where. At dawn he appeared again in the temple
courts where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach
them. The teachers of the law and the
Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the
group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of
adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us
to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question
as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on
the ground with his finger. When they
kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one
of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." (John 8:2-7 NIV)
If we strip away all the maneuvering of the teachers
of the Law to get Jesus to say something that could land Him in trouble with
Roman authorities for promoting an execution or cause Him to lose face with the
Jewish crowds who would rebel against Jesus allowing for sexual immorality, we
come to these two primary aspects of this report. First, are we not impressed with Jesus’
shrewdness to give permission to whoever was without sin to begin the stoning
of the woman! Not a man in the crowd
dared say he was sinless. What sort of
great mind is able to turn the tables on a crowd out for blood? It is simply spectacular how quickly Jesus
thought of a solution to the dilemma He faced.
Let us though turn to the second revelation we have
in this passage of Jesus’ mind. At
this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first,
until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her,
"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you,"
Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." (John 8:9-11
NIV) What is most illuminating in Jesus’
response to the woman is how Jesus’ mind worked. Mercy saturated His thinking and His
decision-making. If He was going to have
to choose between condemning someone and being merciful, He decided upon mercy. He made this clear in the Sermon on the
Mount. Blessed are the merciful, for
they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5:7 NIV)
That is how Jesus thinks. I will
be merciful. I could criticize. I could judge. I could condemn and be justified in blowing
up a person’s life for what she has done.
That though is not how I think. I
will be merciful. What about us? How do we think? Will our first choice be mercy? Will we think like Jesus? Will we give up our right to judge and
criticize and condemn and like our Savior, be happy to show mercy? What kind of world might we have if just
Christian people (we won’t concern ourselves with any other sorts of people)
would live by this one approach to life, “If I will err, I will err on the side
of mercy.”
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