This could be an I.D. question for many human beings. Most of us have a little bit of crazy. To juxtapose that over and/or against being a luminary, kind of puts one in a different category. You might see where this is going. Jesus of Nazareth had naysayers right out of the starting gate. “Can anything (anyone) good come out of that miserable, nothing town?” He did make the most outrageous claim any man can possibly make. The people of Jesus’ time and us still today, two thousand years later, are faced with a choice – was he a lunatic or a luminary? Was he just a very moral yet ordinary guy who knew a few things about the kingdom of God? But that really isn’t an alternative that tidies the whole matter up. I love the way C.S. Lewis put it: “we cannot accept Jesus as just a good moral teacher and disregard his claim to be God. That would mean he is either a lunatic or the devil of hell.”

Jesus backed up every claim he made. That is not braggadocio but truth. I don’t know about you, but I find myself always toting around guilt over my lack of Christian witness. Especially in our great nation, where the risk to my personal safety is so minute. Jesus’ question of his disciples still ages well: “who do you say that I am?” Crazy like a fox or the light of the world? We are also blessed because, if need be, we have the words of many an agnostic who has been thoroughly convinced of the reality of who Jesus is. A thief on a cross next to him. An alcoholic. Radical transformation depicted in the lives of Biblical figures – Moses and Paul. We can certainly claim that Jesus is the Son of God, Savior of the world. We can claim the unconditional love of the one they wrote off as a lunatic; worse, a blasphemer of the highest capital punishment order. We have the backing, the eternal promise that he is with us, no matter what.

Pastor Art