4.1 What Was Jesus Really Like?

There has been no nation, army or individual who has changed human history to the degree that Jesus has! And his popularity is still very evident today... For better or for worse you will literally find Jesus in every corner of society! You’ll find him in cinemas as over 100 movies have been made about Him. You’ll find him in music as everyone from The Beatles to Justin Bieber have sung about Him. You’ll find him in long running animations like South Park, Family Guy and The Simpsons. Now If your image of Jesus was only based on the depictions of modern culture I would be a little bit concerned as I believe Jesus’ character and personality to be crucially important for two reasons. 1) It’s recorded that he claimed to be the Son of God, so if Jesus is the real deal then if you get to know what he is like you get to know what God is like as well. And 2) It’s not just the question, ‘Can I believe in him?’; but, more importantly, ‘Can I trust him?' Personally, I chose to follow Jesus - his teachings and his example, not just because I found compelling evidence to believe in him, but because I found the person of Jesus to be compelling. So allow me to tell you three really interesting encounters that Jesus had with certain individuals because you can tell a lot about someone by the way they treated people. In the Bible, the gospel writer, John, tells a beautiful and heart-breaking story about a woman who was caught in adultery. The penalty at that time was to be stoned to death. One day, a bloodthirsty mob came to Jesus with a half-naked woman in tow. She had been dragged from the scene of the crime, one guilty half of the offending couple, and thrown at his feet. While she is the subject of the conversation, she is not the target. The religious leaders think that they have found a way to trap and ruin Jesus. She’s just a pawn in their plot to discredit him. Jewish law said that she should be stoned to death, but the Romans were rulers over the Jews at that time and their law did not allow the Jews to execute people. They are hoping for one of two scenarios… Scenario 1 would involve Jesus saying, ‘Stone her’, then they could report him to the Governor, and have him punished, maybe even killed by the Romans. Scenario 2 would involve Jesus saying, ‘Let her go’, then they could say that he is not sticking to the law and, therefore, could not be trusted as a teacher. They believe that they have forced a choice: execution by the Romans or punishment by the community. Jesus, is not particularly alarmed or panicked by the situation. He just leans forward and begins to write in the dirt. Then he straightens up and says to the crowd, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.' Suddenly, the scene goes quiet. Jesus keeps writing and says nothing. The disciples watch with wonder. The woman tries to cover herself and closes her eyes, waiting for the stones to start raining down upon her. The crowd, standing with white knuckled hands, holding primitive weapons have their eyes turned from the broken woman before them to the brokenness within them. As they do, they begin to loosen their grip on their stones, drop them and walk away. The scene that they leave behind is a half-naked woman struggling with her mistakes and sitting in a circle of stones before Jesus, the one man who, as far as she could tell, did have the right to judge her. He looks up and says to her, ‘Does no one judge you?' ‘No one, sir,’ she replies. ‘Neither do I. But go now and leave your life of sin.' I learn so much about Jesus from this particular encounter because he doesn’t react as you might expect. On the one hand both the woman and the crowd are guilty of sin. The crowd are displaying their sin through their judgements, their anger, their arrogance; the woman through adultery. Yet Jesus doesn’t judge her like the rest. He neither reaches for his black book of people’s screw-ups, nor does he bend down and pick up one of those rocks. Instead, he sets her free from the judgment of others; disarms the angry crowd, and invites her to start life afresh by leaving her life of sin. Jesus showed us that there is no mistake big enough that he can’t forgive and no situation that he can’t turn around.