“Who do you say that I am.” Matthew 16:16
Every year during Holy Week I like to re-immerse myself in the unfolding drama of the final week of Jesus’s life. This year a question Jesus asks earlier keeps catching me, and I wonder, “Who would I have said that Christ was?” The poem I wrote on Monday (writing poetry is a rare happening for me) came from picturing myself as a Jewish woman, a bystander at the “Jesus entering Jerusalem” procession. What would I have done? I’d have felt excited to hear that this miracle worker, the famed teacher Jesus was coming to our town, just as today I would surely line up to see the renowned Billy Graham if he visited Pensacola. I would have pondered as I waited, “Could he be the Messiah who had been foretold in the stories of my ancestors?”
It occurred to me I might have been disappointed when I saw his face. Isaiah tells us he “had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2). I’ll bet Jesus didn’t look very much like James Caviezel, the handsome, tanned actor who played him in the Passion movie. Isaiah also tells us that Jesus was despised and rejected by men (Isaiah 53:3). I wondered if when I saw this homely-looking apparent-pretender-king looking so foolish riding on a donkey, I would have turned away, disgusted at myself for every dreaming he could be the Messiah.
Thankfully, God’s Redeemer doesn’t have to fit my narrow expectations, and my disappointment could never have limited his mighty saving power. The truth is, I, we, have turned away, looking to small saviors who satisfy our sin-shrunk imaginations. Jesus marched forward, undeterred by his despisers, determined to save us, the mockers. He kept moving until he fulfilled his Father’s mission, and in his dying love for us, he turned our hearts back and drew us to believe in the only One who could truly capture our hearts. I am grateful that no matter what I would have done that day, because of what he did that week, today I lift high the cross praising Jesus my Messiah and King.
