CONFRONTING JESUS

Of course, it was a ridiculous claim to make.

The Jewish leaders, who were on the other side of this running argument, could not help but point out that Jesus was only a few decades old, yet He claimed to have known Abraham. To which Jesus replied, “Of course—I’m God!” His claim was so offensive that “they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds” (John 8:59). Jesus had been in disagreement with these leaders for some time, but this was a step too far. They were prepared to stone Him on the spot, and they had the rocks ready to do it.

His really was an absurd claim—unless, of course, it was true.

As unlikely as the things Jesus was saying seemed—and might seem to us as readers—they made sense to many people in the temple courts that day.

“Even as he spoke, many believed in him” (John 8:30).

There was something about Jesus that they dared to believe.

Jesus confronts us. If we begin to understand Him and consider Him honestly, we must be confronted and challenged. If our reading of the Gospels, particularly what Jesus taught and claimed, has lost that power, we need to find ways to get past our assumed familiarity with Him. Many people find comfort and reassurance in the well-known stories and sayings of the Gospels, but the real opportunity is in finding something about Jesus that challenges us, yet we might dare to believe. In Jesus’ day, it seemed unlikely that Jesus was God and almost impossible that we would still be retelling the stories about Him 2,000 years later.

But across the centuries, there have been countless people who have found something in Jesus that they have dared to believe. So, those stories are worth our serious attention and consideration, as confronting as they might be.