We would expect him to do things no one else could do
We would expect him to say things no one else could say
We would expect him to know things no one else could know
While there were other surprises to his coming - like the humble and lowly manner he took when people were expecting a military leader to come in and overthrow the Romans - there should have been no surprises when he came with the amazing things he did, said, and knew of, when he spoke of people's lives, of spiritual matters, and of the future.
CS Lewis (the writer of Narnia books) made a fascinating observation about what many will say of Jesus:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said, would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - a the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a manman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
We will have a few quotations from Jesus' words coming up on the website through this week, as we approach Easter. Take some time to read them and think about them.
And here's some great advice from this week...
As we walk through life we meet people who have all sorts of theories on who Jesus is. Make a commitment to read the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and keep a journal of all the things Jesus said about himself. Then ask the Holy Spirit to help you gently and graciously paint an accurate portrayal of Jesus to those people you encounter who have misconceptions about him.