"Who is Jesus?": A Personal Reflection on the Meaning of the Question

This question much older than many think it is. It is a question that escaped the lips of many people even in Jesus’ time, including Jesus himself. Luke, one of the writers of the gospels, tells how at one point he asked Simon Peter, one of his closest friends, who people said he was. Then he asked who Peter himself thought Jesus was. Peter said he believed Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.

Not everybody would agree with Peter. Not back then, not today. The name of Jesus today is said by many of those in exasperation and frustration, but very often not in reverent or affectionate invocation but as a something of vulgar interjection. A swear word worthy of being censored on television. His image in the popular mind of many is no longer that of a flesh-and-blood persona capable of laughter, tears and anger, let alone that of a divine God-man. It is not even any longer that of the stone- or wax-faced, expressionless white man of the medieval European imagination. His image today is that of a plastic caricature, a two-dimensional semi-historical grinning man who spews out Zen-like sayings irrelevant to the plight of the postmodern Joe Blogs and Jane Belles. If that image even exists in the popular mind.

Regardless of how we feel about religion, spirituality or the Bible, if what we believe about people and things truly reflect parts ourselves, then maybe what we believe about Jesus of Nazarene, Christ to some and Clown to others, says something about ourselves. To consider him with ridicule creates for him a diminutive image in our minds, one that we can pay little attention to with little consequence to our conscience or self-understanding. To consider him utterly non-existent in history, as some do, turns him into a fictitious plaything we can recreate as we see fit; a character of about as much a grave consequence to either world history or the meanings of our lives as Felix the Cat. A figment of history’s imagination. To consider him a great man of history, much as Buddha and Confucius before him and King and Gandhi after him, is to take him more seriously and acknowledge in our minds that he is one whose words are worth listening to; one whose teachings hold the secrets to good life and world peace. But his words would be all that is left of him, for words are immortal but men are not. Words can be ignored but men, a bit harder to ignore. To consider him as nothing but a man of wisdom – divine wisdom even – is to consider him a man of great legacy to history. But a man – a dead man – nonetheless, mutely rotting in his graves as humanity continues with our adventures far towards the outer reaches of outer and inner space.

The opinion of a large number of the world’s population, though by no means the majority, is to consider him not merely as a man of divine wisdom but as divine himself. This carries with it far-reaching implications and meanings. Some of these implications and meanings might not be as comfortable to people, even to his own followers. This is because his divinity entails that the words he speaks, if one is to believe them, are not merely words thrown into posterity as a guide for living and existing on this plain of existence. These are words that point to its speaker as the guide. As such, to believe in this opinion is to acknowledge that the question of Jesus’ existence is in fact relevant beyond his wise words, and that whether or not he exists is consequential to humanity. And because to acknowledge his existence today means to acknowledge his divinity, to believe this means to surrender control of our own very perception of reality to him. While disbelieving his existence is to diminish his stature before us, to believe it is to diminish ours before him. We would no longer be in control. This is one of the things that make this opinion difficult to consider.

This asks us to ponder upon something quite decisive. If he does not exist, then it does not matter whether we believe in him, and his words are only of consequence to the extent that they make us better human beings. Beyond that, they can be ignored. If he does exist, then it suddenly matters whether or not he we listen to what he has to say, which ultimately points to him.

Now to bring these highfaluting ideas to a personal level, as the title of this piece is, after all, refers to a personal reflection. What do I believe about Jesus, and what does it mean? I believe in his existence and divinity. How do I know what I know is right? I know this in the rational sense perhaps more than in the empirical sense. The word usually used as shorthand for this type of knowledge is “faith”. There is a large body of evidence that I can point to in support of my personal faith; I try to make my faith anything other than blind faith. There is the historical evidence, modern testimonies of other people of faith. Yet one cannot be forced to have faith. The evidence can only point people to having faith, not make them have faith. They can only serve as signs to the chair, not make one sit on the chair. So in short I say I believe Jesus’ existence in history and today to be factual out of informed faith.

One might ask the usual question: is this not just a crutch? To that question I give an answer in the affirmative. Yes, perhaps it is a crutch. But I like to say I am man enough to admit that my life has shown me that I do need a crutch. For to believe that someone is bigger than I am means believing that someone is big enough to give meaning to the painful things that seem meaningless in my life. To surrender control over my existence to such a person means knowing that someone has control over the uncontrollable things in my existence. To do this means more than just answering the question “Who is Jesus?” and accepting its implications; it also helps me answer one of the hardest questions I have ever had to ask myself “Who am I?”