When the day came, the assembly of the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, gathered together, and they brought [Jesus] to their council. They said, “If you are the Messiah, tell us.” He replied, “If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I question you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” All of them asked, “Are you, then, the Son of God?” He said to them, “You say that I am.” Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!”
The religious leaders in Jerusalem seemed to be interested in Jesus’s “line” of work. Did he think he was the Messiah? Even the Son of God? But the authorities weren’t really interested in Jesus’s answers. They were trying to entrap him. We have the opportunity to ask in a fresh way, “Who is Jesus?” We can go deeper in our understanding of Jesus and in our relationship with him.
As a young boy, I loved watching the television show What’s My Line? with my parents. The premise of this game show was simple. A mystery guest would appear, someone with an unusual “line” of work. The panel of celebrities would ask questions to try and figure out what the guest did for a living. I remember how happy I was to see if I could figure out the mysterious “line,” which I almost never did. But it was fun, nevertheless.
In a way, the examination of Jesus in Luke 22:66-71 reminds me of What’s My Line? Now, to be super clear, what happened here was no laughing matter. But the Jerusalem authorities were trying to figure out the “line” of Jesus. And Jesus, like the contestants on What’s My Line? wasn’t making it easy for them.
Of course, there was also a difference in motivation. The game show panel was wanting to discover a secret for the sake of entertainment. The Jerusalem authorities were wanting to find a reason to put Jesus to death.
They asked Jesus first whether he was the Messiah. This question did not have a simple answer because, though Jesus thought of himself in messianic terms, his understanding of the Messiah’s role was different from the one that was common in the first century. Moreover, Jesus sensed that there was no point in trying to engage in a serious conversation about messiahship with his interlocutors. They weren’t interested in learning what Jesus was really all about.
The fact that Jesus brought up the Son of Man is not altogether surprising since he often used this title in reference to himself. The Son of Man (the Hebrew/Aramaic phrase can mean simply “human being”) was envisioned as a glorious figure associated with the future coming of God’s kingdom (see Daniel 7:13-14). Jesus, however, complicated these expectations by showing that it was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer, die, and be raised from the dead (Luke 9:22). In today’s passage, however, Jesus spoke of himself as the Son of Man who will be enthroned next to God (Luke 22:69).
It was shocking to those listening to hear Jesus associate himself with the glorious, powerful Son of Man. So they asked, “Are you, then, the Son of God?” (Luke 22:70). The title “Son of God” could be used in Judaism in reference to the human king of Israel (see Psalm 2, for example). But asking Jesus if he was “the” Son of God went beyond merely a royal title. The authorities were asking if Jesus claimed a uniquely intimate, authoritative, and glorious position in relationship to God. He didn’t answer with a straight-up “Yes,” but rather with an unsettling “You say that I am” (22:70). Yet this was enough for the officials, who believed Jesus had incriminated himself.
We wonder what exactly was the crime of Jesus. From the Roman point of view, he was a rabble-rouser who threatened the peace of Judea. But from the perspective of the Jewish leaders, Jesus had committed blasphemy by associating himself so uniquely with God. Even if he didn’t say unmistakably, “I am the Son of God,” he implied this. Plus, he had done and said things that were appropriate for God alone, like referring to himself as “lord of the sabbath” (Luke 6:5) or forgiving a person’s sins in an apparently blasphemous way (Luke 5:20-21). For Jews in the first century, the gap between humankind and the divine was expansive, and Jesus kept doing and saying things that put him on God’s side of the chasm. This was simply unacceptable to the Jerusalem authorities.
As I reflect on this story from Luke 22, I am reminded of the fact that Jesus’s identity and work should not be narrowed down, though Christians often do this. We embrace Jesus as our personal Savior, which is great but has little sense of his royal authority and glory, which is not so great. We rightly celebrate the salvation Jesus offers after we die, but we neglect the presence of his kingdom on earth today. We rightly understand that Jesus was not the political messiah expected by his compatriots, but we ignore the implications of his authority for our systems and structures.
In this season of Lent, we have the opportunity to reflect deeply on who Jesus was and who he is, and the difference this makes. We can take time to consider the different “lines” of Jesus, the different roles he both redefined and fulfilled in such amazing ways. And we can ask how our lives might be different if we took seriously who Jesus seeks to be for us.
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