The $64 Question

THE $64 QUESTION (September 17, 2006)

Jesus asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’” Mark 8:29

An old American phrase is “That’s the $64 question”. It means that is the crucial question, as in, yes, your car has nice seats and a good radio and is good to look at, but will it run? That’s the $64 question. In the 1950s there was a television quiz show called “The $64,000 Question”. People said, that’s inflation for you.

The $64 question in the Bible is the one Jesus asked his disciples. “Who do you say that I am?” It follows, as we note, a more general question Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” That was a question for a poll: well, 20% say one of the prophets, 43% say Elijah come back from the dead, 3% say a pretty good carpenter, etc. But ‘who do people say I am’ is definitely not the main thing on Jesus’ mind. It is not the $64 question. “Who do you say I am?” That’s the crucial question.

Even though the first question, “who do people say I am?” is not the $64 question, it is still a good place to start.

The biblical writers make it clear that Jesus was first of all a man. He grew up in the same way other people grew up. He was loved and cared for by his parents and worked in his father’s carpenter shop in Nazareth. At the age of 30 he began a public ministry which lasted three years. He knew all the emotions of being a human being – laughter and tears, good times and bad times. He knew the joys of personal and deep friendships. He also worshipped regularly and knew the scriptures thoroughly. At the end he bled and died. He was a man.

But then quickly they add that he was more than a man. The synoptic writers call him Emmanuel, which means, “God with us”. During his ministry he did extraordinary miracles, but he pointedly did not want people to believe him because of the miracles. John said he was the Word made flesh, God incarnate. The word which says he was clearly that he was more than a man is in our gospel today: Messiah. The corresponding Greek word for this Hebrew word is “Christos” – Christ. To say “Jesus Christ” is to say both to say that he was man and more than a man at the same time. This is what Peter was saying in his crucial confession of faith: “You are the Messiah.” The earliest Christian confession was simply “Jesus is Lord”.

Other writers in the New Testament add to this picture. St. Paul said that for him “living is Christ and dying is gain.” He urged the Philippians to have the same mind among themselves as Christ himself had, “who did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself.” Peter called Christ “a living stone, chosen and precious, from the foundation of the world.” The letter to the Hebrews calls Jesus “the reflection of God’s glory and exact imprint of God’s very being and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” Ephesians says that “in him all the treasures of the godhead were hid bodily.” The scriptures testify that he died for the remission of sin and he rose on the third day.

Then there’s the witness of what hundreds of great writers and spiritual leaders have said of Christ down through two thousand years. Teresa of Avila, Thomas Merton, Toyohiko Kagawa of Japan, Simon Kimbangu of the Congo, the Ugandan martyr Anglican Archbishop Jawani Luwum, the 12th century St. Hildegaard, Albert Schweitzer, the great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, who wrote extensively on Jesus, and many, many others.

I fear how little people pay attention to these writings, and simply form a few opinions about Jesus based on perhaps a few scattered verses they remember, but with little serious Bible study, much less reading of the great authors. “Who do people say I am?” Jesus asked. No other figure in all human history has exerted such a powerful hold on the mind and opened the imaginations of so many people of note.

Yes, you can do a lot worse than ask that first question: who do other people say Jesus is?

But as helpful as all that is, what people say about Jesus is not the $64 question. Many a term paper is written in college – or, as I understand is far too frequent these days bought in college – on the subject of who said what about Jesus. The papers are written, a grade is received, and then the student moves on to something else. Jesus is not really interested in what “people” in quotes say about him. Instead, he is interested in the $64 question. Who do you say I am?

In the church it is the question we ask when people join the church and when there is a baptism. We heard it again this morning. I often tell people in preparation for this that the answer is not “let me think about that one.” Of course, nothing is forced and there is no point at all in a forced confession of faith or a forced conversion. God doesn’t want a mind that’s been forced. The church should also be a place where people can explore and probe and change their views and grow, but in the final analysis the church requires commitment to be the church – people willing to say “He is my Lord and Savior” It is commitment which Jesus was looking for, and he got it in Peter’s answer, “You are the Messiah.”

Now and then I hear an advertisement on the radio for St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Manhattan, which has wonderful music programs and mid day weekly services for people working in mid-town. The new rector talks about the music programs but he also says that the church is there to preach the gospel with “clarity”. I think that is exactly right. For too long churches have been trying to win people over with all the wrong things. According to a Doonesbury cartoon a few years ago a couple was asking the minister of the church about his program. When the minister said that basically his program was to talk about human sinfulness and redemption, the couple said they weren’t into “guilt” and they were really looking for a place with racquetball. They said they’d keep looking.

The first four books of the New Testament are called “gospels”. Mark’s is the first written and it begins “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The gospel is good news: good news of the forgiveness of sins, good news of the coming of the long-hoped for Messiah. Not a Messiah of power and might who would overthrow the Romans but instead a suffering servant who would give his life for the remission of sins, and would also call people to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him.

In this is the restoration of the broken relationship mankind had with God. And it is good news because, as we said last week, it says more clearly than anything else that we are somebody because we are so precious in God’s sight he sent his only begotten Son to save us. All of that is good news, but it does require that we answer it for ourselves. It is grace because it is all a gift from God, but it does call for a response, just as Jesus was asking for a response from his disciples.

What is basically required is that we know our need for him. Last night Rev. Ruth and I were here for a service of the Indo-Pak Presbyterian Fellowship, which has been with us now for about six months. The church was practically filled with folks from India and Pakistan and the music was absolutely glorious. There was a guest speaker who used both English and Urdu and at one point he talked about Zaccheus, the little man who climbed a sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus. Zaccheus is a good example of someone who jumped right to the $64 question. His story is the only one in the New Testament which gives us a physical description.

Zaccheus was short. He was also a tax collector for the Romans, and thus thought by many to be almost a traitor. As a huge crowd had gathered by the road Zaccheus knew he had to do something unusual to see Jesus, so he climbed a tree. As Jesus came by he stopped and saw him in the tree. When the crowd saw Jesus stop they must have all thought, ah ha, now the teacher is going to let him have it. Now he’ll tell him to quit cheating people, quit working for the Romans, repent or go to hell. Now we’ll hear something really great.

Instead, Jesus says, “you come down I am going to your house today!” Imagine the shock of that! And that is what happens and Zaccheus, after meeting with the Messiah, promises to give half his goods to the poor and restore anything he has defrauded four times over. He answered the question – who do you say that I am? – not with a statement of faith but with actions which proved beyond any doubt just exactly who he thought Jesus was. And Jesus said “today salvation has come to this house.”

It is the $64 question: who do you say that I am?