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They called to YHWH in their trouble, and God rescued them from their sufferings, guiding them by a direct route to an inhabited town. Let them thank YHWH for this great love, for the marvels done for all people— for God has satisfied the thirsty and filled the hungry with wonder of your works— my soul knows it well.

This week, I received a text from one of our church members that said, “I am trying to focus only on positive and beautiful things today as all the negatives have taken their toll.  I have so much for which to be grateful!” Along with this text were two pictures: one of water and a sunset and another of a forest with a woman walking in it with the quote, “For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.”

Today, I am transitioning between our last sermon series about Debunking Religion and our new sermon series on Purveyors of Awe. And today, I want to do a bit of debunking about the human Jesus and talk about him as a purveyor of awe!

Much has been written about Jesus as a historical human being since the 1980’s when this emphasis really took hold of a scholarly think tank called the “Jesus Seminar”. Jesus scholars from all over the world came together to talk about what we can really know about the person who was Jesus about 2000 years ago.

First, I want to do a bit of debunking. Scholar Marcus Borg makes the distinction between the historical person of Jesus and what was attributed to him later. Borg called the historical man Jesus the “pre-Easter Jesus”, and the “post-Easter Jesus” refers to the attributes given to him after his death, many of which indicate Godliness or Divinity. Today, I want to focus on the pre-Easter Jesus.

The birth of Jesus. We are told that Jesus was born to human parents - Mary and Joseph - in a normal, human birth. It means that Jesus did not come out of the womb sparkling clean and with a halo around his head. He probably cried when he was born. He was probably born soon before 4 B.C.E. and much of the story around his birth is not historical fact but written poetically to show that this was a person destined for greatness. He was likely born in Nazareth, a tiny town of between 200 – 1200 people. And he was – throughout his life – a Jewish peasant.

The childhood of Jesus. Jesus had to pass through a process of growth, instruction and maturation, just as all of us do. There were things he did not know and had to learn from his parents and others. The likelihood is that he was illiterate through his adulthood, as were 95-97% of the Jewish populace. He did not have complete knowledge of God beamed into him any more than we have. We are told in the Bible that he “grew in wisdom and in favor with God and with humanity.” As a child, he played with other children, got into trouble (remember his parents’ going back to the temple), and was reprimanded. Like other children, he learned a trade from his father. I can imagine he hit his thumb with a hammer or mallet a number of times, and perhaps he even muttered a choice word when he did it. To be a carpenter of that day indicated a lower-class status. In fact, in the Greco-Roman world, the Greek word translated as carpenter was “tekton”, a prejudicial slur used by the upper class.

The Bible tells us that Jesus had at least 6 siblings, 4 brothers and 2 sisters. We can assume that he went through normal sibling rivalry and that he said and did mean things to his siblings. They may have even rolled around in the dirt. Because he was human, we know that Jesus experienced illness, tiredness, anxiety and frustration. He had to make a conscious, personal effort to be good, righteous, and spiritually mature.

Jesus as an adult. In his culture, it was important for a young man to contribute to the financial burden of the family early in his teen years. He likely worked for his dad or at odd jobs. He had the pressure of earning a living and providing for himself and his family.

Beside the gospels, there are other ancient writings that describe Jesus. The earliest reference to Jesus that we know of is from Josephus in his writing Antiquities, written in the early 90s. This is how he described Jesus:

“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and 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. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders” Because this is a neutral reporting of a man not known in Christian circles, it is an invaluable look at the historical Jesus.

Scholar Marcus Borg says of Jesus: “Jesus was a peasant, which tells us about his social class. Clearly, he was brilliant. His use of language was remarkable and poetic, filled with images and stories.  He had a metaphoric mind. He had a zest for life. There was a sociopolitical passion to him – like a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, he challenged the domination system of his day.  He was a Jewish mystic, for whom God was an experiential reality. As such, Jesus was also a healer. And there seems to have been a spiritual presence around him, like that reported of St. Francis or the present Dali Lama. And I suggest that as a figure of history, Jesus was an ambiguous figure – you could experience him and conclude that he was insane, as his family did, or that he was simply eccentric or that he was a dangerous threat – or you could conclude that he was filled with the Spirit of God.”

In referring to himself, Jesus almost always called himself the “Son of Man.” He is recorded to have called himself that 80 times in the Bible. Only 4 times is he recorded as referring to himself as the “Son of God.”  In fact, he went out of his way to deny that he had no special power – that the power people saw coming from him was God’s power, not his. He did not claim to be able to do miracles, or cure people. He attributed these works to God.

The core of the gospels is Jesus as the miracle worker, Jesus as a man who made a deep impression upon those who he came in contact with, his ability to attract large crowds, his ability to attract a dedicated core group of disciples, and then a much larger group of people who saw him as someone special. After all, there were many Galilean teachers or preachers in the first century. And there were many who were executed by Rome as troublemakers or people who were threats to the social order. There were many wandering “holy men” around Judea and even the Roman Empire. But this man was clearly special. He made a mark, left an impression. He was someone you could not forget. He had power in a social sense. He knew how to attract, enchant, recruit and hold a large group of people’s attention.

That takes us to the purveyor of awe topic. Remember the member of the church who texted me earlier this week? How many of you identify with her? Enough bad news in the world that you need a bit of awe-inspiring news? This Lenten season, we will have some for you!

I can imagine that Jesus curated a life of spiritual depth and that is why people were attracted to him. In Matt. 6:28-29, Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field..” and reminds his followers not to worry using this example of a tiny, precious, intricate flower. In order to talk about it in this way, he must have taken time to look at the creation around him with awe. He had to have lingered with the lilies for a time to notice deeply the beauty and wonder of the world – he must have had curiosity to approach the lilies and think about the meaning of life and revel with delight in those delicate flowers.

Shuka Kalantar wrote, “When we naturally notice and appreciate the beauty around us, it can lead to all kinds of different benefits. Studies show it can make us feel more satisfied in life, have a stronger sense of meaning, and act with more kindness toward others and the environment.”

All of us can recall a place of beauty where we have been. Take a moment to imagine that place in your memory – perhaps it is a park or a place outside (a place where there is water or natural beauty); maybe it is near water or the ocean; it could be a building that is lovely; or a person who is your idea of loveliness and warmth. Take a moment to bask in the beauty of the person or place you have in your heart. When you dwell in beauty, you give your heart room to heal… you make room for your heart to be inspired… and you remove the noise that distracts you from all that is spiritual.

Jesus knew this truth deep in his spirit. He invited us to “consider the lilies of the field” and to withdraw into quiet places for a reason. He knew that the noise of the world could be too much for our fragile souls.

As Rabii Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement… get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

So, when people ask me why I am a Christian, (and they do), I answer that I believe in this Jesus. I chose Christianity as my faith tradition because of the historical man named Jesus.  I believe that his ideas and ways of life are so powerful that I want to use them in my own life. It is not other religions are wrong – it is that I fell in love with his peaceful teachings, his dealings with people, his understanding of God, and his awe of creation. Or, as Marcus Borg said, “Jesus was a manifestation of the sacred, God with a human face.”

Borg, Marcus, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1995

Writing contributions by Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Alan Segal, Houston Smith, Karen Jo Terjesen edited by Marcus Borg, Jesus at 2000, Westview Press, Boulder, Co., 1997

John Dominic, Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1995