Sermon Video: The Glory of Jesus revealed - Mark 9:1-13

 After telling his disciples that he must suffer and die, and that they must take up a cross and follow him, Jesus allowed Peter, James, and John to see the divine power and glory that made those sacrifices both possible and amazing. On the mountaintop Jesus' divinity was revealed, momentarily not cloacked by his humanity, but Jesus could not stay at the top of the mountain. That experience would be strength and encouragement for the road ahead. Moses, Elijah, and the Father all spoke to bolster Jesus for the Passion that was coming. For Jesus was indeed a king, worthy of glory and honor, but he would set that aside in order to give his life as a ransom for many.

Sermon Video: Jesus is God, Luke 9:28-36

Modern skeptics of the Bible, such as Dr. Bart Ehrman who wrote How Jesus Became God, have asserted that Jesus didn’t think of himself as divine, that his disciples never thought of him as such, and that all such references in the NT are later changes made by the Church.  Aside from the lack of evidence for such claims, there is the additional problem that the entire message of the New Testament, and the Bible as a whole, falls completely flat if Jesus Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, was simply a man wrongfully accused and executed by the Romans.  If Jesus isn’t God, in the same sense that Abraham and Moses spoke to God, Christianity has no reason to exist and all of its teaching are useless.  The disciples did believe in the divinity of Jesus, as did his earliest followers because they witnessed things that could not be explained any other way, among that ample evidence was the Transfiguration of Jesus witnessed by Peter, John, and James.

            The Transfiguration, during a time of prayer on a mountain in Galilee, was not a transformation of Jesus, but rather a revelation of that which was already within him.  As the “Word became flesh”, to use John’s description, Jesus had within himself both all of humanity, except sin, and all of divinity, willingly limited in time and space.  Why such a fuss?  Why would God go to such great lengths when he could have just sent another prophet to share the same message as Jesus?  The answer is simple, no one else could have accomplished the task that the Father required of the Messiah.  Another messenger would not have fixed the fundamental problem that separated humanity from God: human sinful rebellion.  Only by coming amongst us, only by accepting the role of vicarious savior, could Jesus forever open up the path to redemption; only he could do it, and only if he was indeed the Son of God.

            The Church has always taught the divinity of Jesus, those who denied it in the Early Church were opposed, their teachings labeled as heresy.  This belief is absolutely foundational to everything that the Church and Christians think, say, and do.  Jesus is God.

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