We are looking for Jesus in our house. To be more precise, we are looking for a hundred ‘Jesuses’ in our house. I lose track as to when we first started looking. It began with a hundred ducks, tiny little plastic ducks that our kids hid around the house whilst Kim and I were away on holiday in France. They were bad enough: I think there are few ducks that haven’t been corralled into their coop yet but most of the ducks have been found. . .But last year (or was it the year before?) it was tiny figures of Jesus – wearing a sash proclaiming ‘Jesus loves you’ -that became the senior Harding’s challenge. ‘Jesus’ has been found in the battery compartment of clocks, embedded into the soil of houseplants, and in the cassette cartridge slot of our old-style speaker system (who plays cassette’s these days? – there was great rejoicing when He was found!). Annoyingly, the hiders taunt us with the occasional comment. ‘I can see one’ they say, smugly. And yet, despite hunting in vases, under chairs and in cushions there are at least a dozen Jesuses yet to be found.
Where is Jesus? That is the question. Not a bad question in these days of Easter. Over these 50 days we learn of his appearance – to the women, to the disciples, to Thomas, to the travellers on the Emmaus Road. We see Him in Galilee and in Jerusalem, in the Upper Room and by the lakeside. But we are also aware that He seems to be able to be in two places (at least) at once. He appears to Peter even as He is talking on the Emmaus Road: we’re asked to stretch our thinking and imagination. To think ‘differently’ – and that is hard.
Our two readings this morning offer us some help. …or at least they give us some more information to help us to think about these things. In the passage from Acts chapter 7 Stephen is clear that he sees Jesus ‘at the right hand of God.’ Interestingly, it is this vision and the claim associated with it that are the last straw for Stephen’s accusers. We need to ask why. In the Gospel reading the question is not so much ‘where’ is Jesus, but ‘who’ is Jesus? The answer to that question may also help us.
So firstly, the story of Stephen’s trial and judicial murder. The words we have this morning are the culmination of a long sermon in which Stephen has shown how God’s people have repeatedly rejected those who would later become their deliverers: Joseph and Moses are his examples. He then goes on to question whether God can be contained in the Temple. At this point steam starts to come out of the ears of those listening and then, looking up to heaven he declares:
Look, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’
It is Luke, the narrator who adds that Stephen saw the glory of God Himself and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
One answer to our question ‘where is Jesus?’ can therefore be ‘He is in heaven at God’s right hand’. But what does that mean? Well, to be at a monarch’s right hand is to be in a position of intimacy and in a position of power. We’re using picture language but this is also the position of the person who brings the needs of others to the attention of the One on the throne: the God who is beyond our knowing or conceiving.
Now we know that Jesus had enemies in Jerusalem. We also know that anything that involved Jesus was likely to annoy the authorities there, but Stephen’s words (and Luke’s narration) bear a little more examination. In our bibles we are given some words in quotation marks. These quotation marks don’t appear in the original Greek but they are helpful for us. Why? Because Luke and Stephen tie together the invisible, unknowable God, Jesus (who we do know) and the Son of Man. And the quotation about ‘the Son of Man’ is lifted from a key passage in the Old Testament for early Christians and for us: Daniel chapter 7 from verse 9 onwards. There it says, ‘one like the Son of Man’, after a time of trial, is presented before the throne of God and to him is given (I quote) ‘dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.’
Stephen and Luke and Peter (whose words we have been reading each Sunday since Easter Day) and Paul and all those who proclaim the gospel declare Jesus to be Lord. He is ‘Lord and Judge’ of the world, which means that our response to Him, our discipleship is a serious business. Where is Jesus? in a position that we cannot ignore: He is risen, ascended and glorified at God’s right hand and as Ruler over everything – all peoples, all languages and nations are to serve Him. He seeks that you and I should serve Him.
To this, the gospel reading adds an attempt at answering the question ‘who is Jesus’?
We were reminded last year when (to mark its 1700th anniversary) we studied the words of the Nicene creed that our word ‘God’ encapsulates so much more than we usually allow it. Most of us, like Winnie the Pooh, are bears of little brain and like to think we understand that word ‘God’ – we don’t, we never will. ‘The Father Almighty’ we say, ‘maker of heaven and earth’: in Himself He is uncreated and so He is utterly different from His creation. We think we can grasp the word ‘Father’ but this points us both to His being the ultimate source and origin of all things but also to His being always in relationship: bringing universes into being in relationship with Him.
These things we make small because we cannot comprehend them. Children (and renaissance artists) put God up in the clouds. We picture Him with a beard. He and Jesus have a good ‘father and son’ relationship to which we ascribe our own perceptions of what that might be or look like. But John’s Gospel pushes us to think….to go deeper…to stretch our hearts and minds further. In response to Philip’s request to be ‘shown the Father’, Jesus replied ‘how can you ask to see the Father? If you have seen me you have seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?’
This is big stuff isn’t it but it seems to be saying that when we look at Jesus we are seeing as much as are able to see of God Himself. Jesus and the Father are in a relationship where there is difference but where they are so closely related that the unknowable glory of God shines through Jesus to us. I know I am struggling to put this into words but I hope you are getting the drift of what I am saying and also sensing just how important this is for us as Christians.
Perhaps you read the few words I put in The Mercury the other week about the TV programme Pilgrimage. For all my appreciation of the programme I was left disturbed that it presents ‘faith’ as a ‘good’ in itself. ‘You have your faith, I have mine, let’s live respectfully together. What’s wrong with that?’
What’s wrong is that it doesn’t square with what Christians actually believe to have taken place in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here, in just two short passages from the New Testament (and there are so many others) we have immense claims for the person of Jesus (If you have seen me you have seen the Father: I am in the Father and the Father is in me: No one comes to the Father except through me) and a declaration of His exaltation to God’s right hand. So it comes down to Truth. If these things are true then Jesus deserves more than a casual nod of respect: He is unlike any other and yet totally one with us. If true, then the invisible God has made Himself known. He has revealed Himself in human form, He has tasted and conquered the great leveller Death and He has lifted humanity up into His presence. Jesus is our friend and brother, but He is also Lord. Jesus: compassionate, forgiving, understanding, presents us and our needs to God in heaven. Jesus opens the way to a relationship with God and welcomes us into our Father’s presence in this life and the next. ‘Lord Jesus’ cried Stephen as he was being killed ‘receive my spirit ’ – this Jesus is not just a religious teacher. He holds us in life and in death.
So where is Jesus? He is in all places. He ‘fills all things’ to quote the apostle Paul. There is no place where He is not. He is at the right hand of God, representing us to the Father. He is at the right-hand side of the glory of God revealing the Father God to us. And He is Lord. But there is one place where He cannot be unless we allow Him in: our hearts. So the question must be ‘Will we let Him reign in our heart?’
Get more updates and engage with the church community on our Facebook page