We should be interested to note the number of persons who do not accept the Biblical narrative about Jesus but do not deny Jesus existed and His existence matters. Eminent atheists who state in print they doubt the existence of Jesus soon retract their statements when questioned.
If we can consider the existence of a person called Jesus who lived and died in Palestine more than 2,000 years ago, we can start to ask meaningful questions about Him in relation to His establishment of a form of reformed Judaism. He was, after all, born and raised of a strict Jewish family who often struggled with His actrions as they related to the Judaism they knew.
Jesus, we should say, and His followers soon develop a form of religion unacceptable, then and now, to the majority of His co-religionists. Some of His contemporaries participatein His ritual execution, while seeking legal justification to allow His death. We should note how extraordinary are the actions of the authorities in relation to Jesus’ execution, since a few months later they act in the stoning death of a man named Stephen for whom they seek no Roman license. This is to say, their hatred of Jesus provokes a different reaction from them.
Why? I believe Jesus provokes a response because His teaching raises so many difficult questions, for His contemporaries as well as for many of us today.
For instance, we should ask if Jesus is fully human, fully divine or some combination of both human and divine. How does the Biblical narrative inform us?
You will know there are those who have a Low Christology as set over against those who have a High Christology. So you know I am a mainstream orthodox Christian with a High Christology. That is to say, I accept both the humanity and divinity of Jesus. Persons who follow a Low Christology find it easier to explain Jesus as an important human teacher whose influence continues to touch millions down to our day. Persons with a High Christology insist on Jesus as the Christ who comes into the world both to show us how to live as humans before God and to offer a means of spiritual redemption able to take us into the presence of God as adopted family.
Lower Christology adherents point out the different emphases of the four Biblical gospels. Mark, probably the first of the gospel writers, includes no “family tree” for Jesus, while Matthew (the Jewish gospel) and Luke (the Gentile gospel) have different genealogies. John tops them all by offering a theological gospel reaching backward into eternity. The lesson for the Lower Christology believers is the posit the confusion of the earliest writers. Higher Christologists would call the work of the writers complementary rather than confused or contradictory.
Mark accepts Jesus and shows His acts. Matthew accepts Jesus and demonstrates His fulfillment of the Jewish forecasts. Luke accepts Jesus and shows His open heart for all persons. John accepts Jesus and shows His eternal power. All accept Jesus as human. Each looks on Jesus as more than human. Where, then, is the confusion?
I believe we can clear up some of this controversy (if there is any controversy) by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus as evident in the Christmas story (the Advent). The vulnerability of the Christ child at Advent mirrors the vulnerability of the martyred Christ in the Cross-Resurrection event. Besides His vulnerability at both points, what else is common to both events? In both, the Christ, Jesus, surrenders the independent exercise of His divinity.
The night before He dies, Jesus prays to the Father to take the bitter cup of death from Him. He submits, however, vocally to the will of the Father. If Jesus is God, is He just talking to Himself? No, He demonstrates the real sacrifice of the Christ in Jesus. He empties Himself of His divine prerogative and shows Himself obedient even to a bloody, naked death on the Cross.
Jesus dies a human death, then, but with a divine effect. No human can die so powerfully for all other humans. Jesus can and does die for all persons who will believe in Him.
A Low Christology is much like what is presented in the entertainment, prosperity meetings passing for church. Jesus is worthy of more. He is certainly not someone the church should ignore.