Good morning. I don’t know what your first experience of Jesus was, how you learned about him, whether it was just through watching people around you who believed in him, or if it was a class or maybe you really got into it, into a theology class in graduate school or whatever. But the question always is, who is this man Jesus? And for 300 years, the church, the Christian church couldn’t figure out how to describe who Jesus is. Is he God acting like a man? Is he a man acting like a God?

And those were the two heresies that went back and forth and back and forth. And why that makes sense to me, is that just what the mind does? It’s either one or the other. It can’t be both? Well, the answer is it’s both. He’s 100% human and 100% divine.

And where do you think we fail in holding that wonderfully mysterious spiritual mystery? Where do you think we fail most? I think we fail most in making him God. We think Jesus was God, and that’s why he could do everything that he did. That’s why he was so effective in what he did. But to me, when you look at Jesus, you have to focus on the fact that he was just like you.

We’re told in Scripture, we are made in God’s image and likeness. That means we’re not only like God, but we feel things, experience things, like he does. All right? So that means if you’re looking at Jesus, what you want to understand is his divinity is real, it is powerful, but at the same time, he is fully human. So that means I feel, at least in my own spiritual journey, when I started feeling Jesus as a man, when I felt that he felt, when I thought of him as feeling like I do, did I do a good job? Was I too hard on the Pharisees?

Should I have done something different? And the moment where his humanity stands out so vividly and so powerfully to me is in the Garden of Gethsemane. The agony he went through when he found out that his ministry really was going to flop. He really was a flop. I mean, he couldn’t change the temple. The few men that he took to his heart and tried to share who he was with them didn’t get it.

One did. A few women got it. Was he sitting back and saying, well, that’s the way the plan was, and that’s what I’m supposed to do? And, gosh, this will be over soon. Then I’ll go back to my father. No, he struggled.

He was afraid. He wept. He doubted not God ever. I don’t think God could. Jesus could ever doubt the Father, but he could doubt himself or he’s not human. So nothing is more important than holding on to the humanity of this divine creature we call Jesus.

Without that, he can never have the impact on your heart and my heart that he intends to have a great day.