“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” – Revelation 5:12
Two thousand years ago, there lived a Jew in the Middle East who went about talking as if he were more than a mere man. He claimed to have personally been present with God — who he referred to as his Father — before the creation of the world. He claimed not only to be sinless himself, but as the judge of the world, possessed of the right to forgive sin in others.
He claimed to be able to give eternal life, and that he alone was the way to salvation. He invited people everywhere to follow him and give him their complete allegiance. He claimed to be able to satisfy the deepest needs and longings of the human heart. He called himself the “Son of Man” although his name was simply Jesus.
Surely, you might think, these were the ravings of a madman. His claims were outrageous. Many who saw and heard him were astonished at his teachings. His enemies tried several times to kill him for blasphemy, and finally succeeded.
This did not end the matter, however. Jesus had predicted how, when, and why his execution would happen, and promised his followers he would return from the dead. They spread the word that he kept his promise, telling everyone that they had personally seen and spoken with him.
Skeptics may dismiss the biblical account of his life as a fairy tale, suitable for children perhaps but not for thinking adults. Yet we also have testimony from Josephus, a Jewish historian who researched the birth of Christianity for his Antiquities of the Jews, written 60 years after the death of Jesus. Although not a Christian himself, Josephus nevertheless reported:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and [he] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die.
But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders. [From Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3:3, cited by James H. Charlesworth in Jesus Within Judaism (Doubleday, 1988), p. 95.]
One of the strangest aspects of Jesus’ story is that even skeptics, when they read his teachings, don’t come away with the impression that he was deranged or a megalomaniac. Rather, they will readily admit that he was perhaps the greatest teacher on love and human relationships that the human race has yet produced. And when he said he was “humble and meek,” they find it easy to believe him. How can his exclusive claims of divinity be reconciled with the fact that he is held in high regard by non-believers the world over? They can’t. The late C.S. Lewis put it well:
I am trying here to prevent anyone from 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 a 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 patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [From Mere Christianity, Book II, Chapter 3, “The Shocking Alternative.”]
Lewis’s argument forces us to deal with the question: How do we square Jesus’ historical and worldwide esteem for being a genuinely good and moral man if he wasn’t who he said he was? On the other hand, if Jesus was who he said he was, we must accept the fact that he’s worthy of our total obedience.
If Jesus is worthy of any sacrifice, He’s worthy of every sacrifice. If Jesus is worthy of any of our worship, He’s worthy of all of our worship. In other words, if Jesus is worth anything, He’s worth everything! That’s why we celebrate Easter.
