One time when I was on vacation, a man stopped me. He was one of those street artists. He began talking to me and drawing my picture. I didn’t want to be rude so I let him continue to draw and chatted with him. He seemed like a pleasant man. When he finished he showed me the picture of myself. It was pretty ridiculous how much it didn’t look like me. He basically drew a picture of Tom Cruise and handed it to me. I think he wanted me to be so amazed at how good I looked that I would give him all me money without thinking twice. He said I owed him $30. He became fairly angry at me when I told him I only had $1. I offered it to him and thanked him for the picture. He gave me a disgusted look and told me to keep it.
There are many pictures of Jesus out there. Some seem fairly accurate. I remember growing up, on my Bible I had a picture of a pleasant and warm looking man who was being really nice to kids. That seems fairly like a fairly accurate portrait of Jesus. Others are pretty far off. I suppose it is because many people have so many different views and beliefs about him. But if Jesus just had one chance to paint his own portrait what would it look like? What would he include? What would he want to us to see in him? I want to ask 2 questions today. I hope to answer one. The first I just asked. The second is: does your picture of Jesus match his self portrait?
In this story that we will be looking at today (Mark 8:27ff), we find Jesus and his disciples on a vacation. Jesus decided it was time to get away from it all and refocus on some key things in life. They were leaving northern Galilee and traveling NE. Jesus begins this reflective time by asking, Who do people say that I am? We find our first option here.
1) Jesus the Teacher (Mark 8:28)
He is a good teacher. All you have to do is open to Matthew 5-7 and see what a brilliant and moral teacher Jesus is. He teaches us to love our neighbors. He even goes as far to say to love our enemies and pray for those who hurt us. He teaches us not to judge others, lest we ourselves be judged. Jesus teaches about compassion and love, all these things that all men need to listen to and follow.
While this is good and Jesus is in fact a great teacher, if he only had one chance to paint himself, it would not be of him as a teacher.
Why not? 2 Reasons. Jesus is more than just a teacher. He knows this about himself. And he knows one pretty important thing about us. If Jesus just taught us morals to live by, we would all become legalist Pharisees pretty quick. There is an old story of a preacher and his bike. The preacher lived about 2 miles from the church and one Sunday morning he couldn’t get his car started. So he got out his bike and road to church. When he got there, the leaders noticed and started whispering to each other. After the worship service they called a meeting and asked the preacher why he did work on the Lord’s Day. Didn’t he know they frowned upon that? He explained that his car broke down and had to ride his bike to get to the service. One elder spoke up and asked, “Did you enjoy it?” They preacher said of course not. So they decided it was alright. This seems silly, but we would do this in a heartbeat, especially if Jesus just came to teach us had to be better and more moral.
So we move on.
2) Jesus the King (Christ) (Mark 8:29-30)
Jews at this time were expecting the Christ, the Messiah prophesied about long ago. Part of the Messiah’s job was to be king, not over just Judah, not over just all of Israel, but over the entire world. Look at Psalm 2.
But if he had one opportunity, He wouldn’t paint himself as a king.
Why not? 2 Reasons. First Jesus is more than a king. He is the ruler over the entire universe, but that is not all he is. But there is something about mere authority that distances us from them. Aesop’s fables, a Lion ruled over all the beasts of the field and forest. He was a good king, gentle and kind. He called a proclamation together and drew up conditions for a universal league. The wolf would sit next to the lamb, the panther next to the sheep, and the dog next to the rabbit. The rabbit replied to the league by exclaiming, “Oh how I have longed to see the day when the weak would sit next to the strong in harmony.” After he said this, the rabbit ran for his life. Kings make the policies, but they don’t live in our lives. Jesus knows that if he was just a king to us, we would probably come on Sunday mornings pay homage to him, tip our hats his way and by Sunday after noon we forget his name. How many of you receive phone calls from the President of the US? How about your Congressional Representative? State Representative? There is something about mere authority that separates us from those in charge. If this was the portrait Jesus chose, he would be distant to us.
3) Jesus the one who suffers, is rejected, dies, and rises again (Mark 8:31-32a)
He is Jesus’ self-portrait. Why is this central to Jesus? This is his purpose. He saw the world as a mess. All the way back in the Garden, sin is introduced. It messed everything up. And when man tried to fix it, he only dug his grave deeper and deeper. Jesus knew the only way to fix things was to take the punishment of sin upon himself.
Ryle Quote, “Why did our Lord say, “must?” Did he mean that he was unable to escape the suffering – that he must die by compulsion of a stronger power than his own? Impossible…There is a much deeper meaning in the word “must” suffer and be killed. He meant that his death and passion were necessary in order to make atonement for man’s sin. Without shedding his blood there could be no remission. Without the sacrifice of his body on the cross, there could be no satisfaction to God’s [justice]. He “must” suffer to make reconciliation for iniquity. He “must” die, because without his death as a propitiatory offering, sinners could never have life. He “must” suffer, because without his vicarious sufferings, our sins could never be taken away. In a word, he “must” be delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.” The picture that Jesus would paint is the Suffering Servant. READ ISAIAH 53:3-6
He took God’s wrath our deserved punishment for our sins upon himself. We no longer need to worry about the price of our sin, he pain it in full and God’s wrath is turned away. How important is this to Jesus? When Peter rebuked him for saying all this, he said, “Get behind me Satan.”
So my first question was what would Jesus’ self-portrait look like, if he could only paint one picture? Here it is, the one who came suffered, was rejected, crucified, and rose again on the third day. My second question, If you were to paint a picture, and you had just one chance, what would Jesus look life? Would he be teaching, sitting on a throne, or would he be the one who suffered, died, and rose again. Make this central to who you believe he is because it is regeneration, justification, renewal, cleansing, cleaning, beginning of a new story, end of an old life, it is your first day alive, it is your birthday. It is God’s gift to us. It is our life. It is everything. It is central to who he is and must be central to who you are.
