Christmas Forces Decision

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, ESV)

Christmas Forces Decision

The fact that Jesus was born into the world forces the world to answer a question: Who is Jesus? Nobody can ignore the question as irrelevant. Everything about Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death, and resurrection force a decision upon the world. You cannot ignore him. 

That’s what is so important about the birth of Jesus Christ. If Jesus had never been born, there could possibly have been some speculation about whether God existed and whether he acted in the world. People could have continued to come up with naturalistic reasons God’s people were protected and did amazing things. However, once Jesus was born into the world, he forced all speculation to cease. Now, we must decide. Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus?

C. S. Lewis is famous for a quote that answers this question. He says, 

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to… Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.” (Mere Christianity, p. 55-56) 

In answering the question, “Who is Jesus?”, you have three options. You can call him a lunatic. You can call him a liar. Or, You can fall at his feet and call him Lord. This is the decision forced upon all of humanity through Jesus’ birth. It’s a decision pressed up you. 

Who Do You Say He Is?

In the Gospels, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They give him the rundown. Yet, Jesus isn’t truly interested in what other people have to say about him. He eventually turns his gaze toward the disciples and says, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29, ESV).

This is the question Jesus is asking you. Who do you say he is? Do you say that he is a lunatic? Do you say that he is a liar? Or, along with Peter, will you look at him and say, “You are the Christ.” (Mark 8:29, ESV)?