Looking For Jesus

It is not easy to find Jesus of Nazareth in the Bible. There are so many of them! Which one is the real one? Or is he a compilation of all of them? There are the four canonical  gospels, each with their distinctive interpretation of Jesus. Matthew portrays Jesus as the New Moses, the rightful heir of the great Hebrew lawgiver. Mark depicts him as Jesus the Demon-Slayer. Luke pictures him as the Great Physician. John describes him as the Eternal Word made flesh. That is just the four gospels! Then there is Paul’s Jesus and the Jesus of the other epistles, not to mention the gospels that never made it into the Bible. 

I am reading through the four New Testament gospels for the umpteenth time this year, this time reading only the words spoken by Jesus, the so-called “red letters.” In his words I see many other Jesuses. The one I am most attracted to is Jesus as Wisdom Teacher. Jesus as Spiritual Teacher echoes many of the themes of the Wisdom literature in the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus was a mystic who proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is within you. It is here now all around us, if only people open their eyes and see.  

Then there is Jesus as the Social Prophet. He is an ethical teacher that is not so much concerned with individual moral behavior (which he downplays) as he is society’s treatment of the poor, the sick, the outsider, the prisoners, and the immigrants. He echoes themes of the Hebrew prophets Amos, Micah, Hosea, and Isaiah. He lambasts the self-righteous religionists of his day and embraces people excluded by the synagogue and temple.  

Another is Jesus the Apocalyptic Preacher, proclaiming the immanent appearance of the Kingdom of God on earth. A lot of his preaching has to do with the end of the age and the breaking in of a new world order. He spoke about an apocalyptic figure known as the Son of Man (traditionally identified with Jesus himself), who would come to dramatically usher in a Reign of Peace on earth. Jesus connects this to the destruction of the temple and signs in heaven and earth.  

Then there are all the modern Jesuses. Jesus the evangelical preacher, saving souls from hell. Jesus the Christian nationalist waving an American flag and wearing a MAGA cap. Jesus the champion of the second amendment, brandishing a semi-automatic weapon. Jesus the progressive Democrat advocating for protecting the environment, democracy, and human rights. There is the Zionist Jesus defending the modern state of Israel. There is the New Age Jesus sitting in the lotus position and meditating.  

So many Jesuses! Which one – or which combination of these many Jesuses - is the real Jesus? And how do we sift through all our personal biases, theological agendas and political biases, to find the authentic Jesus? Biblical scholarship has been trying to do this for centuries and is no closer to a definitive portrait of the historical Jesus. Even the canonical gospels admit that the original disciples did not recognize the risen Christ. How will we recognize him two thousand years later?   

In the end it is not so much about finding the historical Jesus as it is discovering the eternal Christ here now.  It is not about definitively defining Jesus with a list of characteristics and qualities. It is about deconstructing our personal images of Jesus and unknowing what we think we know about him. Only then is Christ freed from the prison of our expectations to be the one that defies all characterizations. In unknowing the historical Jesus we know the risen Christ in our midst.