Is it important for others to know your identity? And if someone gets it wrong, is it a big deal?
Well, there are some situations where knowing someone's identity can have a significant impact. A number of years ago, I watched Scotland play rugby at Murrayfield in Edinburgh in the Five Nations, and Scotland had played quite poorly. The next night, I went to spend the evening with my cousin and her roommate was getting ready to go out with a guy. He and I chatted while she got ready, and we ended up discussing the rugby match. I commented about how poorly Scotland had played. He didn't say too much about it, but it seemed like a pleasant discussion. When they left, my cousin looked at me, and said, "You are such an idiot!" I looked at her, very confused.
“That guy is on the Scottish rugby squad, and was playing yesterday!” It would have helped to have been clear on his identity!
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Most of the time, there is little or no impact in not recognizing someone. But in the Bible, the Gospels give us some major clues that we have to be clear on the identity of Jesus. CS Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, wrote:
I am trying to prevent anyone 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 the 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 patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
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We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. I have to accept the view that He was and is God.
As we approach the Christmas Season, let's get His identity right! Why don't you join us for Christmas Eve worship at 4:30 or 7:30 on December 24th.
Rev. Ian T. Rankine, Pastor at Pluckemin Church
