Meeting Jesus

Dave Brisbin 4.28.19 On Palm Sunday, looking at how the various groups of people around Jesus couldn’t see him as he was, but only through the filter of their own agendas and desires and so didn’t recognize the hour of their visitation—and then on Easter, looking at how the closest friends of Jesus didn’t recognize him at all after his resurrection—there’s a whole lot of unrecognition going around. So who is this Jesus we’re trying to follow and emulate? What do we really know and how close is what we think we know to who he really is? The New Testament doesn’t give a lot of detail, but when we dig into the language and context and the way the authors wrote their texts, a picture emerges, but it’s one that will challenge the view of Jesus that has come down to us traditionally. Can we really understand Jesus as lighthearted and playful, bold but vulnerable, and always completely integrated? When we look at Jesus through an Aramaic lens, how humor worked in the ancient world, the details that were put in and left out of Scripture, we’ll see how close we can get to really meeting Jesus.