One more story to tell - Portraits of Jesus

It is not just the words themselves that have so much to say about hope in a despairing world.

What makes the words of the New Testament so powerful is that they arise from real life as real people grapple with what it means to follow Jesus in the real world.

It is not possible to identify who exactly wrote the words of the New Testament. What is apparent, however, that they were people who shared their faith in the life of the church. And they were real people. From a very early time the writings that have been collected in the New Testament have been linked with named people in the communities that made up the very first churches. Tell their stories, get a feel for the lives they lived and the struggles they had and the words of the New Testament start to come alive in sometimes unexpected ways.

These are people of faith, whose faith found its focus in Jesus Christ.

These are people who came together in a love for one another that bound them together in the life of the church, often in spite of the very real differences they had.

These are people who through the faith they professed and the love they shared discovered grounds for hope in an often despairing world.

These are the people behind the New Testament.

These are the ‘lives that make a difference’.

The hope they discovered can make a difference in our lives as we share their faith and seek to build all we do on the love that was so important to them.

There is, however, one more story to tell.

All these lives made a difference because these people recognised that there was one Life that had made all the difference to them and would make all the difference to the world as a whole. That life is the life of Jesus.

Portraits in a Picture Gallery

It is not always that sermons stick in the mind. One series of sermons I listened to has stuck in my mind ever since. It was a series of eight sermons preached in Mansfield College chapel, Oxford by George Caird, Principal of Mansfield and Dean Ireland’s Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford.

For a whole year he had been lecturing twice a week on New Testament theology. He brought the New Testament alive in his lectures by inviting us to imagine that we were attending a conference at which the main speakers would be the Apostles.

One would be invited to read a paper. Imaginatively George Caird would then explore a New Testament theme presented, for example, by John. He would then invited other apostolic writers from the New Testament to comment on John’s paper.

In that way he brought to life the community of apostolic writers who were behind the New Testament.

In the sermons that accompanied the lecture series he invited us into a Portrait Gallery. In that gallery were eight quite different portraits. AT first sight they were so different that they appeared to be of different people. Closer examination, however, revealed that they were eight portraits painted by different people of the same person.

Each sermon invited us to stand in front of the portrait painted by that writer of the New Testament.

In the course of eight weeks, George Caird built up a wonderful picture of the One whose Life had made such a difference to the lives behind the New Testament, Jesus.

Portraits of Jesus

As our course comes to an end that’s what I want to try to build up. Each of the writers we have looked at has presented us with a pen-portrait of Jesus. Each portrait is quite different. Yet, taken together the portraits present a wonderful picture of the One whose life can make such a difference to us all.


Peter – hope that’s rocky looks to Jesus, the living stone

In his speeches and in his letters Peter homes in on the cross and resurrection of Jesus. So often things went wrong for Peter. Impetuosity, thinking he knew better than Jesus about
what lay in store, denials, flight, abandonment. Peter had a rocky ride! Yet, each time Jesus gave Peter a new start. Three opportunities to respond to the denials by affirming his love of Jesus. In Peter’s story there is always something more beyond his failure to understand.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead …” 1 Peter 1:3

There is one superb picture of Jesus that meant so much to the one Jesus nick-named ‘the rock’: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by people yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifies acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:4-5.


Mark – down to earth hope looks to Jesus the man alongside us

In Mark, do we touch Peter’s reminiscences of the life of Jesus? Was he the one who ran away naked into the night in the Garden of Gethsemane? Was he the one in whose house the followers of Jesus meet to pray? Was he the one who let Paul down but was given a second chance in his missionary travels?

In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is a man of action. Few parables are included by Mark outside of Chapter 4. There is a breath-taking pace to the unfolding story of Jesus from the very beginning with that day in the life of the Jesus where the words ‘and’ and ‘immediately’ are so important!

A passion narrative with a prologue, the cross in Mark’s gospel is very much a gibbet. The place of the skull is very much the place of abandonment where Jesus touches humanity at its lowest point and cries out … ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34

Resurrection is hinted at … but it is left for us to live out that resurrection in our own lives as Jesus becomes real for us. For this is but ‘the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God’. Mark 1.1


James – hope through actions looks to Jesus the greatest example of all

James had little time for his brother Jesus during his life time. But his resurrection made all the difference. It was not long before he became a leader of the church in Jerusalem. What counted in Jesus for him more than anything else was putting the teaching into practice.

It’s no good having faith unless you put your faith into action. “Faith, by itself, if it has no works is dead.” James 2:17.

James echoes the sermon on the mount and takes seriously the challenge of Jesus at the end. Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acrts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”

Indeed the wise man of the Old Testament who had built a house for God on the rock was Solomon. Now the presence of God was located not in a geographical location in Jersusalem but wherever people heard those words of Jesus and put them into practice.

This was the essence of it for James, the brother of Jesus. Put your faith into action and you let the presence of Jesus loose in the world.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27.


Hebrews – the way to hope looks to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of faith

The letter to the Hebrews is written to followers of Jesus whose roots are in Judaism, or for Christians who want to make sense of the Jewish roots of Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures. He explores some of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures: God, priesthood, the temple, faith. And he finds the focus of all of those themes in Jesus.

Jesus is the great High Priest … but “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15

That’s the point for the writer to the Hebrews! Jesus is just like us! That’s what makes us able to relate to him so closely. If that’s the case we need to do something about it … “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16.

Jesus is the one who has opened up a new way into the very presence of God … and it is away all of us can follow!

“since we have confidence to enter [the very presence of God] … by the new and living way … let us approach with faith, hold fast to our hope, and provoke one another to love.” Hebrews 10: 19-25.

Jesus is ‘the pioneer’ who has blazed a way into the presence of God. We can ‘run the race that is set before us … looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:1-2.





Matthew – a handbook of hope for would-be disciples looks to Jesus the Teacher who is yet more than a Teacher who knows temptation and triumphs over it

Knowing the difference Jesus had made to him, a tax-collector, Matthew was all too aware of the way of life that Jesus mapped out for his followers to take. He brought together the teaching of Jesus outlining

what it takes to ‘live under God’s rule’ in the sermon on the mount (5-7),
the missionary challenge to ‘take God’s rule into the world’ (10),
what this ‘rule of God’ is like (13)
what it takes to live by this rule in the church (18)
what it takes to live under God’s rule to the very end (23-25)

Jesus is the Teacher who teaches with authority. “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times … but I say to you …” Matthew 5. This is the teaching that the followers of Jesus are to hand on as they ‘teach people to obey all that Jesus has commanded them (Matthew 28:18-20)

He is the teacher who is more than a teacher, who yet knows what it is like to be tempted.

The cross in Matthew is more than a place of execution. It is the place of the final temptation. “If you are the son of God …” had not only been the temptation Jesus faced at the start of the ministry (Matthew 4:1-11), it was also the temptation Jesus faced on the cross from ‘those who passed by’ from ‘the chief priests, the scribes and the elders’ and from the bandits crucified with him (Matthew 27:38-44)

It is for Matthew at the moment of his death that the ‘new and living way’ of Hebrews is opened up by Jesus. The one tempted as we are, resists temptation to the end, and gains access for us to the glory of God.


Paul – hope through suffering, hope for a better world looks to Jesus as Lord and Saviour

It was in meeting the risen Christ that Saul of Tarsus found new life for himself. That new life was nothing less than a new creation for him. A Jew and a Roman citizen his roots were firmly in Judaism and in the Gentile world of the Roman Empire.

What counted for him was that all who follow in the footsteps of Jesus were ‘in Christ Jesus’. Jesus shares with us in our sufferings and enables us to share with him in his glory. “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith active in love.”

He was convinced that ‘nothing in all creation could separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8: 37-39.

He was convinced, “Jesus is Lord” and we are ‘the body of Christ’. That means that all distinctions disappear: “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

More than a theory – that’s something Paul expects the churches and individuals to whom he writes to take to heart.

It is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6


Luke – a healing hope looks to Jesus, Forgiver

Travelling companion of Paul, the beloved physician, Luke very much takes this picture of Jesus to heart.

Jesus is very much the healer who not only heals people who are sick but also heals people’s relationships too.

The cross is for Luke a place of healing where relationships are restored.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34


John – Hope through Love looks to Jesus the Word of God, the Son of Man who means so much to us all

Word of God, Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Teacher (Rabbi), Christ (Messiah) the one about whom Moses in the Law and whom the Prophets also wrote about, Son of God, King of Israel, Son of Man. By the end of chapter 1 there can be very little doubt that in the presence of Jesus we are in the presence of someone who is one of us and yet one with God – with his feet firmly on the ground but his head in the glory of heaven!

The great I AM is the bread of life, the light of the world, the one who bears witness concerning himself, the one from above, the gate, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth and the life, the true vine.

In Jesus we touch God, the God who is love (1 John 4:16), the God ‘who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

That love is seen supremely on the cross where Jesus sees his mother and the beloved disciple, “Woman, here is your son.” “Here is your mother.” John 19:26-27. The cross for John is the place where Jesus’ humanity is seen, “I am thirsty” John 19:28, and where all is brought to its conclusion and all is accomplished as Jesus says, “It is finished” John 19:30.

This is the hour at which ‘The Son of Man’ is glorified (John 12:23 see also John 1:51)


Revelation – hope against hope looks to Jesus the first and the last

In the face of all adversity, John the divine, is sure that Jesus will never let any of us go. He is the One who is there at the beginning. He is the One who is there to the very end. He is the One who says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” the One “who is, and who who as and who is to come. Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

We can be sure therefore, that whatever the end, and whenever it should come, God is with us in Jesus Christ. He will usher in a new heaven and a new earth, he will wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more for the first things have passed away! Revelation 21:4.