(Excerpt from WHO IS THIS GUY? and What Have You Done with My Sweet Savior?)

“I couldn’t do that, could you do that? How can they do that? Who are those guys?” —Butch in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

“And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” —Matthew 21:10

In the 1890s the outlaws who went by the names Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid along with the Wild Bunch Gang moved from robbing banks to railroads, repeatedly robbing the same trains. The Railroad Owner E. H. Harriman had finally had enough. He sent a highly-trained posse out after them. Butch and Sundance were used to evading capture by easily outwitting any posse with clever tricks and diversions. But this posse was different—they kept coming. They were relentless, not falling for their tricks, tracking them through rivers and over rocks and even by torch light at night. In the film, Butch and Sundance periodically stopped to see if they’d lost them only to find that the posse was still hot on their trail. Butch and Sundance repeatedly asked each other the same question:

“Who are those guys?”

They asked each other this question because this posse was something very different from what they had experienced in the past. This posse was not just some sheriff and local townspeople—this posse had major skills, uniquely different from anything they had ever encountered before. These outlaws were confused by the uniqueness of this posse.

Have you ever found yourself with a group of people listening to someone speak, perhaps sitting in a classroom or business meeting or even in church, and you are confused? Yet, you look around and everyone else is nodding their heads in understanding. You say to yourself, I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m slow or maybe everyone else is just acting as though they understand, but it’s not clicking for me. What do I do? Well, maybe you’ll summon the courage to risk looking dumb and ask a question, but more than likely you’ll start nodding your head with the others.

I feel much the same way about some scriptures throughout the Bible. I’ll read a text and come to a part that at face value makes no sense to me. Many of the most challenging scriptures to me have to do with Jesus saying or doing something that just does not fit with my image of who Jesus is and how he would behave. But more often than not, when I come to those scriptures, I’ll read it, shake my head, and accept that it just might be above my understanding. So, I move on to those scriptures I’m more comfortable with, that I can understand, and are more consistent with my image of Jesus.

When I began to question Jesus’s behavior in these strange scriptures, I realized that it wasn’t the first time I questioned who this person Jesus really is. Back in 1979 I was invited to a Christian concert. At the end, the Gospel message was given and an invitation to “receive” Christ was extended. Something stirred within me as I recognized the truth in the words being spoken, but when I was challenged to step forward to commit my life to Jesus and to follow him for the rest of my life, this question came to me, Who is this guy Jesus? I don’t know him. Why would I commit my entire life at this moment to someone I don’t even know?

I grew up going to Catholic school and served as an altar boy, so I certainly knew of Jesus, but as I got older, I walked away from religion. At this concert, I was being told that it wasn’t about religion but about relationship—God coming down to restore a broken relationship with his creation. But did it really require me to commit to blindly following someone I didn’t even know?

Many know of Jesus. Some believe him to be God himself, come down as human flesh to die as the sacrifice for sin, to be raised from the dead so man’s relationship with God might be restored. Others believe him to be simply a good teacher, while many aren’t sure what to think.

But what is my image of Jesus? Who is this person who is supposed to be in an actual relationship with his followers, and as Jesus promised, would reside within each of them?

The image I and many of his followers have always maintained is the loving, kind, gentle, meek, tender healer and restorer of the soul, who welcomes the little children with open arms, and accepts and forgives the sins of the adulteress. He restores lives through miracles. He does not judge but forgives all, even his enemies. He is the perfect embodiment of what is good and right and true.

To the community of Christians, he is Lord, Redeemer, Friend, Son of God, Son of Man, the Alpha, the Omega, Prince of Peace, the King, the Name above all names—he is THE Christ—THE Savior.

Or—does he occasionally show his humanity and expose himself as being prejudiced, disparaging an old Gentile woman as an “unworthy dog”? Or—does he on occasion act impatient, cursing and killing a fig tree because it didn’t provide him with the fruit he wanted at that moment? Or—does he occasionally lose his temper and fly out of control as he did with the moneychangers in the Temple?

Much like Butch and Sundance I ask, “Who is this guy Jesus?”

Why Ask the Question?

There are three reasons to ask this question about someone:

1. Because there is something obviously unique and special about a person, and we are genuinely asking to know more about them, or
2. A person promotes themselves as though they are special but we aren’t certain. We wonder about who they think they are as opposed to who we know them to be, or
3. A person is acting in a strange way we don’t recognize as normal behavior.

As it pertains to Jesus, we are not the first to ask this question. In the gospels, people regularly looked upon Jesus, scratched their heads, and for any one of these three reasons asked, “Who is this guy?”

By my count there are about two dozen scriptures in which some form of this question is raised. Here are a few of them:

• Matthew 8:27: So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be?”
• Matthew 21:10: All the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?”
• Mark 1:27: They questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this?”
• Mark 4:41: And they said to one another, “Who can this be?”
• Luke 5:21: The Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this?
• Luke 7:49: “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
• Luke 9:9: Herod said…, “Who is this of whom I hear such things?”
• John 12:34: The people answered…, “Who is this Son of Man?”

One of the most dramatic exchanges Jesus had with his disciples is in Matthew 16. Matthew gives an account of Jesus confronting the disciples to see if, amongst all the confusion, they understand who he is. “He asked His disciples, saying, ‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’ So, they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (verses 13-16).

Philip Yancey comments in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, saying, “Interestingly, the demons never failed to recognize him as the ‘holy one of God’ or ‘son of the Most High,’ it was the human beings who constantly questioned his identity.” So, what was all the confusion about? We can see that the people of his day were uncertain about the identity of Jesus. They called him Son of Man, Son of God, Son of David, and Messiah. Others thought he might be John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, one of the prophets, or perhaps just a rabbi or teacher.

When Simon Peter answered, and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” it seems pretty clear to me that Jesus confirmed what Peter said was true in the next verse: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven’” (verse 17).

But still, even to this day, there are some who don’t believe that Jesus was confirming his identity as Messiah or that he ever confirmed it. With unique skill, Jesus used language that was capable of providing both confirmation to his believers and doubt to his detractors.

We know with certainty many of the wonderful characteristics of Jesus. Yet, how was it that his own family could basically ask of Jesus, “Who do you think you are?” Even his cousin John was uncertain and asked, “Are you really the guy?”

But, I believe we would all do well to continue asking,“Who are you Jesus?” with the desire to know Him better and more fully. When his family had doubts or were confused, they asked. They were satisfied. He certainly satisfied his brother James who went from doubting his annoying brother, Jesus, to declaring himself a slave to his master, Jesus. (James 1:1)

Throughout the Gospels Jesus repeatedly encourages us to “ask” giving the assurance that those who ask will receive. He has always satisfied those who ask with the desire to truly know.

Ask, genuinely wanting to know. He will satisfy you.