Author: Dave

“Who is this Jesus? The Call for a decision: Liar, Lunatic or Lord”
Luke 5:1-11
July 20, 2014
Rev. David Williams
Scripture: Luke 5:1-11
Sermon:
Context
	[pic] Imagine, for a moment, being on the seashore that morning.  You can hear the sound of the waves lapping on the shore.  Gulls cry in the morning sun.  You feel the squish of sand between your toes and the smell of salt water fills your nose.  Imagine yourself working alongside Peter.  Together you are cleaning and mending the nets you use to fish the Lake of Gennesaret.  Exhausted, you both pore over the nets carefully, looking for holes and tears.  Perhaps that was part of the problem?  You’ve been up all night fishing, as is your usual practice. The fishing is better at night.  But, despite being up all night fishing, you have nothing to show for it.  You are exhausted and frustrated, but there are no problems with the nets.  Nothing out of the ordinary at least.    
You were counting on having fish to sell at the market today in order to buy bread.  Your families were counting on having fish to eat for dinner tonight too.  But you didn’t catch a thing. Not a thing! You’ve had bad nights before, that’s for sure, but it’s rare that you catch nothing!  You hope there was enough left over yesterday that there will be something to eat tonight.  Otherwise you and your family is going to bed hungry!
Peter is angry and frustrated too.  He has a temper, you know!  Always a bit of a hot-head, that one!  You’d think he would be in a better mood. In fact, he has been in a great mood of late.  His mother-in-law had been sick a while back. She had a bad fever and was bedridden at Peter’s house.  That hadn’t been fun!  The family was getting worried, but then they spoke to that Jesus fellow.  Apparently he had gone to visit Peter’s house and he had healed her! The whole town was abuzz!  Not only did the fever break, but she felt better immediately and even got up to help serve dinner!  That was pretty amazing.  Peter had been astonished when he came to work that night.  He’d been in a good mood since then. Until last night, that is.
As the night wore on he’d gotten more and more frustrated. He blamed the weather. He blamed the nets. He blamed you. He blamed James and John.  He blamed the fish.  He blamed the weather again.  By the time dawn was breaking, he had lived up to the adage “mouth like a sailor.”  Now, as you were cleaning the nets and no holes or tears showed up, you could feel the “I told you so’s” building up inside, but you dare not say anything out loud.  You’re just too tired to bother.
What’s that sound?  Are those voices?  You hear a voices coming from over the hill.  They’re getting louder. It’s not just a few voices, it sounds like a crowd.  Yes, there, down the beach, there’s a crowd coming.  Who’s that walking with them? It looks like that Jesus fellow again.
Uh oh. They’re coming this way. Really?  Today of all days?  Just what we need, a crowd walking over our nets, tramping sand all over the place.  Hopefully they’re going to keep going.  After last night, the last thing you want to hear this morning is a sermon!  
They’re stopping.  Really?  Right here?  You’ve got the whole beach and you’re stopping here?  Can’t you see we’re busy?  “What’s that you ask? How’s the fishing?  Really?  Do you see any fish?  Do you smell any fish?  Do you see the steam coming out of Peter’s ears?”
	“Look, don’t shoosh me because you want to hear Jesus.  We were here first.  Excuse me, can you get off my net please.  I’m working on that.”  Oh man, where are all these people coming from?  I haven’t seen the beach this crowded since, well, since forever.  People call calling for quiet. They want to hear Jesus.  Yeah, no way everybody is going to be able to hear you here.
	Oh wait. Jesus is talking to Peter.  What’s he asking him?  Oh, you’ve seen that look on Peter’s face before!  He’s not particularly impressed.  Peter comes over to you and tells you to put the nets back in the boat.  “We’re pushing out into the water,” he grumbles.  Really?  Well, you’re just about done with the nets. It’s not like you had to spend a lot of time cleaning fish this morning, since there were none.  You fold the nets back up and put them in the bottom of Peter’s boat.  He and Jesus get in the boat and Peter pushes out a bit from shore.  Jesus sits down and begins to speak.  Now the people can all line up on the water’s edge and they aren’t pushing and shoving as badly as before.  Since you don’t have anything to take to the market you figure you may as well listen too.  This Jesus guy isn’t so bad, after all.  He’s got some good stories at least.
	A while later, Jesus has finished his lesson. It was pretty good.  Actually, it was very good. He doesn’t teach like the other Rabbis.  On the one hand, he speaks with greater authority. On the other hand, he’s able to make it really connect with everyday life. Then you notice he’s saying something to Peter.  What was that?  He’s telling Peter to put out into deep water? He wants him to let down the nets again?  But we just finished cleaning them!  And every fisherman knows, the fishing is much better after dark.  If we didn’t catch anything at night, we’re certainly not catching anything in the heat of the day!  What does a carpenter know about fishing?  See, Peter’s setting him straight.  Wait.  No he’s not.  He’s going to do it!  He’s pushing out into deep water.  Crazy!  Well, I’m not helping him wash the nets again. Let him worry about it.
	Wait a second.  What’s going on? Why can’t Peter pull the net in?  Are those fish?!?  Oh my goodness!  Not just fish, but tons of fish!  What the heck?  Where did those come from?  Holy mackerel! They’re breaking the net!  Quick!  James, John! Get in the other boat! I’ll come with you.  Peter needs our help! 
	You leap in the other boat and you head to help Peter with the nets.  When you get there you see the largest catch of fish you’ve ever seen in your life. Those nets you just cleaned and mended are starting to break!  Working together, you manage grab the nets between both boats to bring the fish into shore, but even working together your boats are sitting low in the water and threaten to swamp.  You get the boats in to shore in time and the people in the crowd are pointing and looking at the fish in awe.  They know something special has happened too!  Over in the next boat you see Peter kneeling before Jesus, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” you hear him saying.  You agree with his sentiment and you’re glad you’re in the other boat.  You leap out into the water and start hauling in fish, wondering about who this Jesus really is.  A little while later, James, John and Peter come to talk to and Zebedee.  They tell you to take the fish to market on your own.  They’re going with Jesus!
Observations
	Wouldn’t it have been something to have been there that morning? Jesus’ miracle was more than just a demonstration of power.  He wasn’t just showing off. He was providing for his disciples’ families that morning!  That miraculous catch would have helped provide food for their families as well as some extra cash for the coming months when the disciples were away, travelling with Jesus.  Imagine seeing all those fish!  Imagine talking to the disciples afterward. The stories about the catch would have been circulating around town for months if not years and you would have been able to say, “I was there! I saw it!”
	What effect do you think it would have had on you?  We know the effect it had on Peter, James and John.  When Jesus called, they gave up everything to follow him.  They spent the better part of three years travelling with him, learning from him, watching him and emulating him.  They even went on their own missions trips going to different towns healing the sick, casting out demons and declaring the amazing news that the rule of God was at hand!  
	Here in our own text, Peter even knelt down and worshipped Jesus.  He knew Jesus was more than a prophet.  He recognized that he, a sinner, was in the presence of someone truly holy.  He recognized that Jesus was God!  That is what I want to zero in on here this morning.  Peter fell down or knelt down in front of Jesus. That is a sign of worship!  Peter’s response to Jesus was to worship him as God.
	Where else do we see this?  How do we know that this is a sign of worship?  We think of worship as singing, so how do we know that Peter is worshipping Jesus?  It happens a couple other times in the NT that people fall down in worship.  I want us to consider a couple of them.
	Two of the most obvious examples come from Acts.  In Acts 10:25-26, Peter goes to visit Cornelius, a Gentile and a Roman soldier.  That was a double whammy- not only a non-Jew, but a hated Roman soldier! He was one of the enemy!  But he was also a God-fearing man who generously gave to the needy and prayed to God regularly.  An angel told Cornelius to send for Peter. When Peter arrived at Cornelius’ house, we read “As Peter entered his house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence.  But Peter made him get up. ‘Stand up,’ he said, ‘I am only a man myself.’”  So here we see that falling at a person’s feet is a sign of reverence.  Notice, too, Peter’s response. What does he say?  “Stand up, for I am only a man myself.”  Peter is not willing to accept such reverence.  Why? Because Peter is only a man.
	A few chapters later, in Acts 14:8-18, in the town of Lystra, Paul heals a man who was crippled in his feet.  The crowd started shouting in their own language that the gods had come down to them in human form! They thought Paul was Hermes because he was the chief speaker or messenger and they thought Barnabas was Zeus. (Interesting, as a side note, that they thought Barnabas was superior to Paul….) The people didn’t fall down in front of Paul and Barnabas, but the priest of Zeus came from the temple with bulls and wreaths to sacrifice to them.  How did Paul and Barnabas respond?  “They tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: ‘Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you….’”
	There are a couple examples in the book of Revelation as well.  In Rev 19:9-10, John himself falls down at someone’s feet.  John tells us, “Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
At this [John writes] I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers and sisters who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For it is the Spirit of prophecy who bears testimony to Jesus.”
	Again, at the end of the book, in Rev 22:8-9, John is putting a closing comment on his work.  He says, “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me.  But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!”
	These, then, are repeated examples of people falling down in reverence or worship of mere men or angels.  In each case, the response is the same: Don’t do that! I’m merely a man, or merely a servant.
In contrast, consider the famous “throne room scene” in Revelation 4-5.  John sees the throne of God surrounded by heavenly creature, elders and angels.  These creatures are worshipping the one on the throne.  Rev 4:10 “the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever.”  Here, the one on the throne accepts the worship.  Why?  Because it is appropriately his. It is appropriate to worship God. It is not appropriate to worship men or angels.  Interestingly, in the second half of the throne room scene, the Lamb of God appears and takes the scroll from the arm of the throne.  In Rev 5:8 the elders fall down before the Lamb that takes up the scroll from the throne. “And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb.”  At the end of Rev 5 we see it again, “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
    be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped. [Rev 5:13-14]
	Here we see that both the Lamb and the one seated on the throne (the Father) receive worship.  The elders, creatures and angels all worship both the Lamb and the Father and both the Lamb and the Father accept the worship because it is appropriate for them to do so.
	Now, let’s back up to our passage in Luke again.  Remember, at the end, Peter falls down before Jesus.  What have we just seen in the rest of the NT?  Falling down in front of somebody is a sign of reverence and worship.  What else have we seen? When people fall down and worship Peter, Paul, Barnabas or an angel the one being worshipped is horrified and stops it.  When God is worshipped, he accepts it.  It is only appropriate to worship God.  If you are a creature, whether human or angel, it is not appropriate to accept worship.
	How, then, does Jesus respond when Peter falls down in front of him?  Does he say, “Wait! Whoa! Get up Peter! I’m only a man! I’m only a prophet! I’m only a great teacher!”  No!  Jesus has the gall to accept Peter’s worship!  He says, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”  From that point on, Peter, James and John left fishing and followed Jesus.  Jesus accepted Peter’s worship and then took him on as a pupil.
Interpretation
	What are we to make of this?  What does this mean?  It is easy when we’re reading this passage to focus on the fish. It is easy to get caught up in the miraculous catch of fish, wondering how it happened, how many fish there were, what it means that their boats were sinking. Because we are dazzled by the fish and because culturally we don’t bow down or fall down as a sign of worship, we miss the incredibly important event at the very end.  Peter worships Jesus and Jesus accepts it!  Jesus accepts worship which is only appropriate for God to accept.
	And guess what! This is not the only time he does this! After the resurrection, when Thomas says that he won’t believe unless he sees for himself, Jesus appears to him and repeats his words.  Thomas falls at Jesus’ feet and says, “My Lord and my God!” [John 20:26-29] Again, Jesus accepts Thomas’ worship. He doesn’t tell him to get up. He doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t correct him.
	What does this mean?  The first thing this means is that Jesus thought of himself as God.  Why is that important?  Because it means that even at the beginning of his ministry Jesus knew his own identity. Some people have theorized that maybe Jesus wasn’t aware of his full nature during his ministry, that he slowly became aware of it.  But that’s not the case because even early on he was willing to accept worship.
	Second, it means that Jesus does not leave us the option of thinking of him as merely a good teacher or a good person.  A good teacher does not claim to be God.  If Jesus was merely a teacher, he would not have accepted worship!  Paul and Barnabas were teachers.  They were not only teachers, but they even had the power of the Spirit through which to perform miracles! Yet they did not accept worship.  Peter was the great foundation of the church. He, too, had miraculous faith. But when Cornelius fell down at his feet, Peter told him to stand up.
	Similarly, Jesus cannot be reduced to a good person whose example we should follow.  Sure, we should follow Jesus’ example in so many way, but he cannot be reduced to that.  Why? Because good people don’t allow other people to treat them like God.
	Even in other religions they do not treat their major figures like God.  Mohammed is a prophet. He is not God.  Muslims are adamant that there is only one God and that Mohammed is [only] his prophet. They are quite scandalized by the thought of Jesus being God and cannot wrap their heads around the Trinity.
	Buddha is a prophet. He is enlightened.  He has attained the ultimate spiritual goal.  But he is not God.  Part of the difficulty of even comparing Buddhism and Christianity is the different understandings of the divine involved in both religions, but Buddha is considered a great teacher, a guide to enlightenment, but he is not considered a god. [//www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/qanda01.htm]  Technically, while Buddhists respect Buddha, they do not worship him.
	That Jesus accepted worship both before and after the resurrection indicates that he believed himself to be divine, to be on par with God, to be worthy of worship.  This puts us in a tight spot.  It severely limits our response to Jesus.  Many people like some of what Jesus said. They like the character of Jesus.  They like that he was loving and kind. They like that he was friends with sinners. They like that he was hard on the super-religious, like the Pharisees.  They like that he talked about loving one another and that he was peaceful.  But if you take Jesus on his own terms, he doesn’t allow us the option of just taking his teaching or just taking his example. If we are just going to follow Jesus’ example, then we can accept worship too!
	CS Lewis, in his famous radio addresses that were later published as Mere Christianity, boils it down to three options.  When Jesus accepted worship, and as we talked about last week, took it upon himself to tell people their sins were forgiven, he put himself in God’s place.  He took upon himself the responsibility and authority of God.  What kind of person does that?  According to Lewis, Jesus gives us three options as to his identity:  Jesus was either a liar of the worst kind, a complete lunatic or he was what he said he was- Lord of all creation, the one and only God. 
	Another way to put it is that he was either a charlatan, trickster who fooled people, which makes him completely slimy and evil and not somebody you want to follow or listen to at all; or he was a complete head case, out to lunch, several cards short of a full deck, also somebody you don’t want to follow; or he was who he said he was, LORD, God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, including our creator.  Those are the only three options.
	In Jesus’ own day, his enemies thought he was a lunatic.  They didn’t have that vocabulary, they didn’t know about mental illness or schizophrenia, or anything like that. In their cultural context mental illness and, in fact, any illness that involved loss of motor control like epilepsy, was thought to be caused by demon possession.  So in their own terms, they accused him of having a demon or being in league with demons. [Matthew 9:34; 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15; John 7:20; 8:48; 10:20]  Yet even then people objected that Jesus did not teach like a man possessed, he didn’t sound crazy. And being possessed did not explain how he was able to heal people or cast demons out of people. Jesus himself objected that it would make no sense for Satan to drive out Satan [Luke 11:18-19 and parallels].
	If Jesus was a liar, then why did he live such a simple life? There are plenty of liars and charlatans in our day, but what do we notice about them? They’re all rich! They take people’s money. But Jesus lived a humble life of material simplicity. When people tried to proclaim him the Messiah, he discouraged it because it came with too many political strings attached. When people tried to force him to be king (at the feeding of the 5 thousand) he slipped away.  He had no house of his own, let alone a mansion.  If he was a liar, he certainly didn’t profit from it!  There was no fame or fortune in being Jesus.  And one would think that if it was all a sham that he wouldn’t have carried the story to the cross!
	So we are left with the third and final option- that he was who he claimed- God himself!
Now Apply It
	How do we apply this then?  Why is this useful?  First, is Jesus God?  Many of us know non-Christians who would say no, Jesus is not God.   Sadly, many liberal Christians would say no, too.  There are liberal Christians, including liberal theologians and pastors, who deny the deity of Christ. When we speak to them about Jesus, whether they claim the name Christian or not, we need to be prepared to object if or when they claim that Jesus was a great teacher or a good person.  Yes, he was those things, but only if he was also more than those things. He is not a great teacher if he also taught that he was God.  He was not a good person if he accepted worship and forgave sins.  And this is not a case in which after he was gone people started to worship him. They worshipped him both at the beginning of his ministry as we saw with Peter and at the end of his time on earth in the case of Thomas.  He accepted it when offered to him!
	When you hear people talking about Jesus, don’t let them get away with reducing him to a good person or a good teacher. Don’t let them reduce him to a prophet.  That’s what Muslims do. The Koran mentions Jesus, but just as a prophet along the lines of Moses.  Jesus doesn’t leave us that option!
	When you hear a person reducing Jesus to a good teacher, ask them, “If he was just a good teacher, why did he tell people their sins were forgiven? Why did he accept people’s worship?”  If I accepted your worship, I would not be a good pastor! In fact, no matter how good a pastor I am, if I start accepting people’s worship that makes me a very bad pastor!
	When talking about Jesus, when talking about the fact that he told people their sins were forgiven and when he accepted people’s worship, ask people what they think of that. Ask them what kind of person would do that?  After letting them ponder, it’s ok to even suggest CS Lewis’ classifications- liar, lunatic or Lord.  Most people would be loathe to call Jesus a liar. Most would doubt he was crazy.  But they are then uncomfortable accepting that he is God.  That’s a good place for them to be, though. It puts them in the place of having to deal with the challenge of Jesus.  
	One of the worst things that can happen for a non-believer is being left to dismiss Jesus as just a good person or just a good teacher. Why? Because it leaves them thinking that they’ve accepted Jesus “enough.”  It allows them to think nice things about Jesus without having to turn themselves over to him. It allows them to live in a halfway response to him.  And that is terribly dangerous!
	When you go to the doctor, you want the doctor to be honest with you, right? [pic]  If you’re sick, you don’t want the doctor to tell you that you’re ok.  You don’t want the doctor to let you go home thinking you’re healthy when you’re not.  If your doctor finds a tumour, you don’t want them to keep that a secret because they don’t want to upset you or scare you. You want to know there’s a lump so you can have it investigated and find out if you’re sick. If you are sick, you want to know how to treat it!
	Letting people think Jesus is merely a good teacher or merely a good man is like a doctor sending a patient home with a tumour but telling them the swelling is just a bruise and that it’s fine, ice it and it will go away in a few days.  Far better is to have tests done on the tumour to find out if it’s dangerous so you can have it removed or otherwise treated!  Anything else would be considered malpractice!
	This also bring us to a point of decision ourselves. What is our response to Jesus?  If we believe he is God, do we live it?  Peter fell down before Jesus in fear and reverence, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”  When you consider Jesus as God, do you respond in humility, recognizing your own sin?  We can make a mental decision that we believe Jesus is God, but do we make a decision of our will that he his God?  Do we change our lives because he is God?  Peter gave up everything for Jesus precisely because he was God.  Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law (read about it near the end of Luke 4) but that wasn’t what caused Peter’s response.  So you can see Jesus’ miraculous power and still not know he is God.  You can experience Jesus’ healing in your own life or in the life of your family, but still not realize the full implications that he is God. Have you had an encounter with Jesus?  Have you responded Peter-like, falling down before him in worship and acknowledgement of your own unworthiness?  Have you then “left everything and followed him”?
	Jesus wants more than our acceptance. He wants more than our acknowledgement.  He wants our attention.  He wants our worship. He wants our everything.  Have you given it to him? 
Amen.