Pastor's corner - Decide for yourself who Jesus is for you.

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” according to Shakespeare. (Romeo & Juliet, II, ii, 1-2) Why then do we so often limit God’s names and descriptions to only one... Father?

The Bible refers to God in many different ways in different places. Why then do so many of us limit our experience of God by only recognizing God as Father? I like the Father image personally, but not all the time. Sometimes what I need from God comes from an image other than of a Father or even a masculine entity. Some people have great difficulty with the father image because their fathers were less than satisfactory or even downright evil.

The image and the name cannot be allowed to define God, who is in his very nature undefinable. There is nothing wrong with deliberately choosing the Father image and name for God and believing that God is our Heavenly Father. God is. I do believe there is something wrong with saying that people who think of God in otherways are heretical or sinful. The image of God as an old man with a long white beard sitting on a throne in the clouds of heaven is to me the idolatrous one: that was Zeus. God is beyond, more, infinite.

Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Beloved, the Messiah, Deliverer, Savior, Christ. Jesus is also the carpenter, the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary, Rabbi, Teacher, the crucified, the forsaken, the Suffering Servant. He is all these things and more. As John the Baptizer, the gospel writers, and Paul all recognize.

So what is in a name? A description? Where God is concerned, it tells people more about us than it does about God or Jesus. The words and names we use to refer to God and Jesus tell people what we believe. The people of the Gospels knew Jesus in different ways and referred to him in the ways that have become familiar to any Christian.

Too often, though, we use these stock phrases that we have heard for many years to refer to Jesus and never take the time to think about what we mean or what we are saying in using them.

In the coming year, I challenge all (I am accepting this challenge myself) to take some time to decide for yourself who Jesus is for you. Read each of the gospels again as separate accounts. Don’t mix what you know from one gospel with another and see how differently the writers saw Jesus. Remember that many early converts would have had only one of the gospels (or even one of the non-canonical gospels). Read a couple of books by different authors with different backgrounds on Jesus and see what they say.

Then take time to really think and pray about who Jesus is to you and what it is about him that appeals to you personally since he is a personal Lord and Savior. Figure out for yourself in whose name you have been saved.

United Church of Christ, Colfax