I have got to be honest about something: I am not a big fan of Charles Dickens. I have tried. I am just not a big fan. However, I do love A Christmas Carol! What a great story! In particular, I love the way that A Christmas Carol begins. Do you remember? Listen:

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?[1]

Well! One thing is clear: it was very important to Dickens that the reader understood that Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge’s former partner, was, in fact, dead. Why? Because in just a bit, Marley was going to visit Scrooge from beyond the grave! The certainty of Marley’s death lends force to the shock of Marley’s reappearance. Marley, of course, comes as a ghost. But Dickens needs the reader to understand: Marley really was dead.

The Christian story hinges in part on the fact that the hero of our story, Jesus, really and truly and actually died on the cross. Here is how the Apostles’ Creed puts it: “was crucified, died, and was buried.” It is as if the writer/s of the Creed likewise needed us to understand this, because they use three images, all of which speak of death: (1) He was crucified. (2) He died. (3) He was buried.

Why this emphasis? Why this repetition? Because the shock of Jesus’ reappearance hinges on the certainty of His death. Jesus really died. And yet, to our amazement, there are some who have challenged even this idea. So let us consider carefully “was crucified, died, and was buried.”

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Matthew 21

¹ And Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, ² saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. ³ If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” ⁴ This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, ⁵ “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” ⁶ The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. ⁸ Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” ¹⁰ And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” ¹¹ And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

In Thomas Madden’s review of Jonathan Phillips’ book, The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin, he describes how the Muslim Saladin conquered and then triumphantly entered Jerusalem in 1187 AD (an event so shocking, Madden tells us, that Pope Urban III died after hearing about!). Many of the details are quite fascinating. He writes:

The conquest of Jerusalem was the centerpiece of Saladin’s career. He wanted it to be a religious moment, as well as high-profile revenge for the Christians’ capture of the city in 1099. According to Imad al-Din, Saladin proclaimed:

I wish to deal with Jerusalem in the same way that the Christians treated it when they took it from the Muslims . . . they inundated it with blood and did not permit a moment’s peace. I will cut the throats of their men and enslave their women.

But when Saladin laid siege to Jerusalem, its garrison commander, Balian of Ibelin, dissuaded him from this plan…Balian knew that Saladin had staked much on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the restoration of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. Balian vowed to destroy these holy sites unless Saladin agreed to a peaceful surrender. Faced with that credible threat, the sultan agreed to terms of surrender. He then rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on October 2, 1187—the anniversary of Muhammad’s Night Journey.

Saladin’s approach to the inhabitants of Jerusalem is most interesting. Madden explains:

According to the surrender agreement, the conquered could ransom themselves at the cost of ten dinars per man, five per woman, and one per child. After payment, one received a receipt allowing departure from the city with whatever goods one could carry. There were approximately sixty thousand Christian men in the city and an unknown number of women and children. Since the ransoms were costly, people were forced to sell their goods to redeem themselves and their families. Merchants from neighboring territories swept into the area to take advantage of the bargains. Balian of Ibelin organized an effort to collect funds from wealthy Christians, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the military orders that paid out thirty thousand dinars to redeem eighteen thousand poor. Others were allowed to leave without ransom as an act of charity on the part of Saladin or his supporters. Though most of Jerusalem’s Christian inhabitants managed to depart and make their way to Tyre, when all was said and done about sixteen thousand poor had been led to the slave markets of Egypt and Syria.[1]

Saladin’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem was markedly different from Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Consider:

• Saladin came to Jerusalem wanting the blood of the people. Jesus came to Jerusalem to shed His blood for the people.
• Saladin had to be blackmailed out of his desire to kill. Jesus willingly laid down His life.
• Saladin made the inhabitants raise a ransom price to free themselves. Jesus died as a ransom payment to free us.

Two famous figures. Two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. But two very, very different events. May we be grateful that they were! Let us consider more closely the triumphal entry of Jesus.

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Terrence Malick’s beautiful 2019 film, “A Hidden Life,” focuses on Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector during World War II. It is a powerful film. There is one scene in which Jägerstätter enters a church and has a conversation with Ohlendorff, a painter who is working on various paintings within the sanctuary. As he works on these paintings of Christ and other biblical figures and images, Ohlendorff says the following to Jägerstätter:

I paint the tombs of the prophets. I help people look up from those pews and dream…

I paint all this suffering but I don’t suffer myself. I make a living of it.

What we do is just create sympathy. We create admirers. We don’t create followers.

Christ’s life is a demand. We don’t want to be reminded of it so we don’t have to see what happens to the truth…

I paint their comfortable Christ, with a halo over His head. How can I show what I haven’t lived? Someday I might have the courage to venture, not yet. Someday I’ll paint the true Christ.

It is a heart-rending scene. It hits me especially hard as a pastor. Am I painting a comfortable Christ? Am I helping in the formation of admirers of the comfortable Christ instead of followers of the suffering Christ?

The painter Ohlendorff declares that he will “someday…paint the true Christ.”

We turn away from the suffering of Christ. Or, more precisely, we turn away from the suffering of Christ except in a transactional sense that benefits us. We do not mind His suffering insofar as it wins us our salvation. But what do we do with His suffering as it challenges our own comfortable lives? What do we do with His cross as a way of life, with His words from Matthew 16:24: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”?

He “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” the Creed tells us. What are we to make of this? What, in other words, are we to make of the suffering Christ? Why did He suffer and what does that mean for you and for me?

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Matthew 20

²⁹ And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. ³⁰ And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” ³¹ The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” ³² And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” ³³ They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” ³⁴ And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.

Maybe you have seen the movie “Cinderella Man,” starring Russell Crowe. Crowe plays the boxer James J. Braddock, who boxed in the 1930s. One of the more powerful and moving scenes in the movie is when Braddock, working on the docks and unable to support his family, has to go and explain his desperate plight to a room full of wealthy, nicely-dressed men, literally with his hat in his hand, and ask for $18.38 so he can get his children out of the hard labor job he had to “farm them out to” when he could not pay his bills. The men in the room listen in silence to his appeal and look at his extended empty hat. Finally, a few put some money in and wish him well. A few others turn away in disgust. Many look uncomfortable and embarrassed. It is a masterfully-done scene. It highlights both the indignity of begging and the social stigma that comes with it.

I suspect that is how it has always been with beggars: some give to them, some turn away in disgust, and many are just uncomfortable. There are also a couple of different reactions in the begging scene Matthew describes in Matthew 20:29–34. Some rebuke the beggars and attempt to get them to be quiet. But there is one who hears them, one who shows them mercy, one who gives.

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It is rare that I do a double-take on religion polling…but I did a double-take on this one. Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay released their 2022 “State of Theology” report[1], and one part of it actually stopped me in my tracks. Here it is:

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in 2020 30% of self-professed Evangelical Christians agreed with the statement, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” 30% agreed that Jesus is not God. And last year that percentage increased to 43%.

43%…of Evangelicals…do not believe…that Jesus is God.

Church, this represents a staggering failure on the part of the church to teach theology and to teach theological teaching. This is why something like the Apostles’ Creed is so important, especially insofar as it prompts us to dive deeper into the doctrinal realities of our faith.

Lines 4 and 5 of the Creed are especially important here. Let us listen again:

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary

These two lines of the creed will help us establish two important biblical truths that will then lead us to our doctrinal understanding of who Jesus is. The two truths established by these lines are:

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit:         Jesus is fully God.
born of the Virgin Mary:                                Jesus is fully man.

Let us consider these truths.

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Matthew 20

¹⁷ And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, ¹⁸ “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death ¹⁹ and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” ²⁰ Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. ²¹ And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” ²² Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” ²³ He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” ²⁴ And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. ²⁵ But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. ²⁶ It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,²⁸ even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Howard Foshee writes:

Years ago, I read a newspaper feature written by a man who told of his student days in New York City. He related how he used to visit the magnificent Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Once a guide called his attention to a series of niches around the cathedral chancel. In each niche was carved the figure of a man who had been chosen as the greatest of his century. The first century was represented by St. Paul. Columbus represented the fifteenth; Washington, the eighteenth. The nineteenth had been awarded to Lincoln. It was the last niche that really caught his attention. This block of unshaped stone had not yet been carved. Still in rough hewn form, it represented the greatest man of the twentieth century. That name was yet to be chosen—for that person could well be in the process of becoming.[1]

It is a moving story, and it is intended to inspire. It leaves the reader with this question: Might you be the next great person? Even so, it does buy into a particular understanding of greatness, no? After all, Paul, Columbus, Washington, and Lincoln were all men of fame and great accomplishment. So there is a bit of despair that comes with the whole exercise as it raises the question of the likelihood of us doing what these great men did. But what if greatness is not really defined by accomplishment but rather by faith, hope, love, and obedience? Further still, what if true greatness in the Kingdom actually looks like failure in the terms of the world?

Jesus had something to say about greatness, and what He said went against all common sense. But Jesus—may we thank God—was anything but common, and so we will allow Him to define what great really means.

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Calvin Miller once spoke of the challenge that school teachers faced in the counterculture of California in the 1960s. Seemingly all of a sudden, little children—the children of hippies—started appearing in classes with the most exotic of names: Peace, Moonbeam, Star, Rainbow, and the like. Teachers had to adjust and, above all else, had to avoid showing surprise at these strange names.

One school teacher was prepared, then, to find among her students a little boy named “Fruit Stand.” It was written right there on the little name card the kids wore: Fruit Stand. So the teacher decided to embrace it outright. “Good morning, Fruit Stand!” She said to the boy. Then, throughout the day, she warmed to the name: “Yes, little Fruit Stand? You have a question?” “That is right, Fruit Stand! That is the correct answer!” “Of course, Fruit Stand, you may go to the restroom.” And on and on it went

He was a sweet little boy, and the teacher was sad to see him go. Even so, at the end of the day, he lined up with the others to be led out to the buses. The teacher came to little Fruit Stand, patted him on the top of his head, said, “I will see you tomorrow Fruit Stand!”, then turned his name placard over so that the bus driver would be able to see where he was to be dropped off.

And there, on the back of his name card, it said…Anthony.

What I love about the Apostles’ Creed is the way that it names Jesus then turns His name card over so we can see what is written on the back. And what is written on the back is powerful and provocative and incendiary, for on the back we read: “Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” We have sought to answer the question, “What does it mean to call Jesus ‘Christ’?” We then sought to answer the question, “What does it mean to call Jesus ‘Son of God’?” Now we will attempt to answer the question, “What does it mean to call Jesus ‘our Lord’?”

This last title, “Lord,” must be understood. To say that it is pervasive in the New Testament is to make an understatement, for as James Leo Garrett writes:

Whereas “Lord” is used 139 times in the New Testament of God the Father, it is used 489 times of Jesus. The latter usage occurred in all books except Titus, and 1, 2, and 3 John.[1]

So what does this important and very-present word “Lord” mean?

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There is a phrase in the Bible and a phrase frequently said by Christians that many Muslims find absolutely shocking and offensive. That phrase is “Son of God.”

Collin Hansen, in his Christianity Today article, “The Son and the Crescent,” explains.

The Qur’an explicitly states that God could not have a son. In Arabic, the word ibn (“son of”) carries biological connotations. Muslims reject the possibility that God could have produced a son through sexual relations with Mary. Christians confess that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. But this distinction is lost on many Muslims who lack the theological context for understanding nuanced Christian teaching on the Trinity.

The problem, however, far surpasses a theological argument between Muslims and Christians. In fact, the Qur’an (At-Tawba 9:30) says God curses anyone who would utter the ridiculous blasphemy that Jesus could be ibnullâh (“a son of God”). Not only do Muslims disagree with Christians about the identity and nature of Jesus, they also incur a curse for even mentioning the phrase “Son of God.”

Rick Brown, a Bible scholar and missiologist, has been involved in outreach in Africa and Asia since 1977 and regularly consults on language development and linguistics, including Bible translations. He says pious Muslims would sooner leave the presence of someone who utters the phrase than risk judgment in hell for hearing it. Even those who lack such devout scruples think hearing or reading “Son of God” will bring bad luck. Many avoid associating with Westerners altogether, regarding them as polytheists who harbor strange views about God’s family.[1]

Hansen goes on to explain that this reality has led to an intense debate between Bible translators, with some either dropping the language of “Son of God” in reference to Jesus or adding qualifying language to the phrase to distinguish it from biological sonship and others arguing that this goes too far, compromises the integrity of these translations, and ultimately hinders evangelism and missions by making too many concessions to Muslim readers.

That is an interesting debate, but for our purposes let us say this: the language of “Son of God” is critically important to our understanding of Jesus, has deep biblical attestation and roots, and must be rightly understood and articulated.

We have considered what it means to call Jesus “Christ.” Let us consider now what it means to call Jesus “Son of God.”

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