“And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee? But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Mark 14:60-62
You’ve probably heard that if you ask an honest person a question, you’re going to get an honest answer, right? Well, that was definitely what you are going to get from the Truth himself! Of course, the truth revealed in Mark 14:62 wasn’t the truth that the high priest and his associates wanted to hear; in fact it made him furious and he moved for a vote to condemn Jesus to death. Some things never change. Jesus is still telling the truth through his Word and some people are still reacting violently to it. Yet there are others, and hopefully you’re in this camp, that love to hear the truth from Jesus, and even if it hurts our pride and condemns our actions, we thankfully embrace it for our growth and future good.
Now, the truth revealed in Mark 14 is something that we began to think about last week. The idea that Jesus is the Son of man and the significance of that identification of our Lord. At Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, he confessed that he was the Son of man. This was a direct reference to Daniel’s prophecy found in Daniel 7:9-14, and the reason the high priest lost his mind when Jesus said what he said. What was Jesus saying here though? What did he mean? Was he saying that he was not the Son of God? Of course not! In emphasizing that he was the Son of man, Jesus was not denying his Divinity; rather, he was helping us understand the depths of his sacrifice for us and the heights of his victory for all of humanity. In calling himself the “Son of man,” Jesus was declaring that God became flesh and dwelt among us so that we could become the sons and daughters of God!
Brothers and sisters, can you see it? Jesus became a man so that we could partake of the Divine nature of God. What an amazing act of mercy and grace! With that said, there’s more to it than just that. What? Absolutely! He also became a man so he could rightly identify with us, qualify for our sacrifice, and exemplify what humans could be and should have been all along.
“You don’t know a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” I don’t know who first said that, and I’m probably not quoting the statement verbatim, but we’ve all heard this sentiment and understand the importance of empathy. So did Jesus. So much so that he decided to become a man so he could identify with us. Jesus walked that “mile” and then some! Hebrews 4:15 states that he was tempted in all points like the rest of us, only he overcame the urge to sin. Hebrews 2:14-18 lets us know that he can be merciful to us, because he knows what we are made up of. Jesus is capable of true empathy because the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us!
You know another reason Jesus became flesh? So he could qualify as our sacrifice. We read in Numbers 35:33 that when men shed blood, the only way to fully and finally appease the wronged and cleanse the land was to shed the blood of “him that shed it.” Enter Jesus. Hebrews 10:1-10 explains that Jesus came into the world as the sacrifice to set things straight. Did Jesus shed the blood of men that came before him? Well, no, but he did become sin on the cross and took upon himself all the wrongs that all of humanity had committed in that moment. In doing that, he vicariously bore our sins in his body on the tree. Wow, what a hero, what a super—yet human—Savior we have in Jesus!
Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.