The Father and I are one. [John 10:30 (NLT)]
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. … Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. … And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. [John 14:6,11a,24b (NLT)]
In C.S. Lewis’ children’s fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the youngest child, Lucy Pevensie, happens upon an enchanted armoire and steps into the magical world of Narnia. Upon returning, she rushes to tell her siblings of her astonishing adventure. Hearing such a tall tale and finding no concrete proof of its truth, her older siblings assume the story to be a figment of her imagination. They take their concern over her falsehood to their wise elderly uncle. He cautions them to use logic and consider Lucy’s story carefully. He points out there are only three possibilities: either she’s lying, crazy, or telling the truth. After pointing out that lies usually are more plausible than Lucy’s inexplicable tale, he asks if she’s lied before. The children admit she’s always been truthful. After pointing out that none of Lucy’s behavior indicates mental illness, they all agree she can’t have gone mad. He then suggests that since she’s neither a liar nor crazy, they could consider the possibility that Lucy’s story is true.
Interestingly, this is the same line of reasoning Lewis uses in what is called the “Lewis trilemma” or his “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” argument found in Mere Christianity. Lewis uses this logical argument when people claim to believe in the existence of Jesus as a great moral teacher but not as God (which, unfortunately, many people do). Jesus certainly talked as if He were God. He professed to be able to forgive sins and to be the only way to the Father. He claimed to have existed since the beginning of time, that He was a heavenly king who offered everlasting life, that to know Him was to know God, and that He would judge the world at the end of time. He called Himself the Lord of the Sabbath, the true vine, the bread of life, the resurrection and the life, and the way and the truth and the life.
Lewis points out that we have only three choices about those fantastic claims: Jesus was either a liar who perpetrated a fraud, a madman with delusions of grandeur, or the Lord. If His claims were untrue, the one thing Jesus couldn’t have been was a principled man or an excellent teacher of morals and ethics!
There are many people who consider Jesus simply to be a Jewish version of Buddha or Socrates: a great man, filled with compassion and love, who had some profound and noble ideas. That whole Messiah/Son of God thing, however, just doesn’t sit well with them. We should remind them that neither Buddha nor Socrates claimed to be God but Jesus did! The Pevensie children soon learned the truth of Lucy’s claim and, hopefully, others will see the logic and truth of Jesus, as well!
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [C.S. Lewis]
Our old friend Joe recently visited. Along with our friend Ric, he and my husband were partners in a manufacturing business in another state many years ago. Once a year, the three men would meet away from the business (with its phone calls and constant interruptions) to discuss their short-term and long-term business goals. While Ric and my husband were the legal, financial, and sales parts of the business, as a processing engineer, Joe oversaw manufacturing.
I think the worst thing my parents could say was that they were disappointed in me. Knowing I hadn’t lived up to their high expectations, I’d hang my head in shame as they added, “We expected far better from you.” I never wanted to disappoint them but, unfortunately, like every child, I often did.
If I were doing what accountants call a cost-benefit analysis of our living in Florida, the cost side would include venomous snakes, poisonous cane toads, hurricanes, alligators, sink holes, fire ants, and mosquitos along with humidity, allergies, high insurance, and seasonal traffic. On the other hand, the benefits would include never having to shovel snow, scrape sleet from a windshield, or drive on icy roads, along with the enjoyment of beaches, beautiful birds, colorful flowers, ocean breezes, “early-bird” specials, sunshine, no state income tax, and never-ending summer. While not one hundred times better, the pluses outweigh the negatives and make it worthwhile (at least for us)!
When a rich man asked Jesus what he needed to do to have eternal life, the Lord told him to sell everything and give it to the poor. More willing to part with eternal life than his riches, the disappointed man departed. When Jesus explained, ”It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” the disciples were astonished. Jewish tradition held that riches were a sign of God’s blessings and favor while poverty and sickness were God’s curse. If a rich man couldn’t get into the kingdom, they wondered who could.
It’s been said that Leonardo da Vinci’s last words were, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.” A scientist, painter, architect, mathematician, musician, sculptor, geologist, botanist, historian, cartographer, and inventor, da Vinci was a true Renaissance man and it’s difficult to understand how he could feel he failed God or anyone else.
Devotions of the Heart 