= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 

     Bill Irwin is a Christian writer who often devotes himself to discussing spiritual matters in a humourous vein. He also happens to be blind. One of his prize possessions is a talking computer that he uses to study the Bible. Some of the computer's pronunciations have caused him to chuckle from time to time. For example, he writes that “for a long time the computer pronounced Holy Bible as 'holly bibble' until I figured out how to modify it.” Another thing he discovered about his computer was that it uses the Spanish pronunciation for Jesus Christ - “HEY-sus Krist.” He wasn't able to figure out how to change it, and after some research he wrote that he had finally discovered that the reason he couldn't change it was that “the programmer is Hispanic and he made sure that HEY-sus Krist cannot be altered!” Perhaps that story could serve for us as a reminder that although there are many things (and perhaps almost everything) about life that we can change to suit our changing personal tastes and likes and dislikes and desires, there's one thing that can't be changed, and that will remain tamper-resistant forever. None of us can change Jesus. In that passage about the impact of love – which is the eternal character of the God revealed by Jesus – the author of Hebrews made that point strongly in just a few words.

 

     Most of us, I suspect, have difficulty with the concept of “forever.” We are all time limited beings, with a beginning and an ending (at least to this life) and we tend to measure everything on the basis of time – we watch the hours, days, weeks, months and years as they pass by. When Hebrews says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” I suspect that most of us can relate to the concept of “yesterday and today” but that “forever” part is difficult. We can't understand “forever,” even though we know deep down that “forever” has to exist. According to what I've read, scientists have decided that the universe has an age – the latest figures I've seen suggest that the universe is 15 billion years old. Perhaps. If so, though, I'd like to know what existed 15 billion and 1 years ago. Even if there was nothing, nothing is still something, isn't it? Hasn't something – even if the something is nothing – always been here? But we want to be able to measure things in terms of years, or at least some measurable unit. We can't contemplate that anything could have existed that didn't have a concretely determinable beginning.” “If God created everything, who created God?” is the typical child's question that confounds a lot of adults as well. “God is eternal,” is the answer. God has simply always existed. God can't be measured in terms of time because God exists in a realm beyond time. Centuries ago, Thomas Aquinas tackled this question from a philosophical rather than an explicitly Christian perspective. His proof of the existence of God is too complicated to go into in great detail but basically Aquinas said that there must be a God who has always existed and was never created, because if everything in creation depended on a creator then nothing could ever be created. The creator has to exist eternally without ever having been created: otherwise, nothing else could ever have been created. It's very complicated, and the reason we find it complicated is because our finite human minds have difficulty grasping that anything – even God – could have possibly existed through all eternity. The author of Hebrews takes us further. He argues that the Son of God has existed “forever” - which implicitly declares Jesus to be one with the eternal God – and – even more difficult to grasp perhaps – his argument is that this eternal Jesus Christ has never changed. The implications of that statement are enormous – and even unsettling to many people.

 

     There is today what you might call a whole theological industry which has grown up around the task of changing Jesus. This theory says that we really know nothing about Jesus. Everything we know about Jesus is merely a construction of the early church. Perhaps, according to the author Tom Harpur, Jesus never existed at all! The so-called “Quest for the Historical Jesus” is based on the completely hypothetical proposition that the New Testament is an unreliable account of Jesus' life and identity, and rests on the rejection of the testimony of those who knew Jesus in favour of the scholarly arguments of those who live today, who apparently feel that they – better than Jesus' contemporaries, or at least those who came pretty shortly afterward – know who Jesus was. The so-called “Quest for the Historical Jesus” has – to my mind – no real purpose except to replace faith with doubt. But perhaps I'm wrong to say that. The so-called “Quest for the Historical Jesus” has one other purpose – or, if not a direct purpose, at least one other direct implication. If we really know very little about Jesus' life and identity, then we can really know very little about His teachings. If the New Testament is really a distorted account of Jesus' life, then it must surely be also a distorted account of Jesus' teachings. What Jesus taught about God, therefore, (and about Himself) is subject to our interpretation or even our outright rejection. What Jesus taught about ethics and relationships, therefore, is subject to our interpretation or rejection. If we're uncomfortable with something the New Testament says that Jesus said or taught, we can simply ignore it or dismiss it. The concept of an unchanging or eternal Jesus is anathema to a society which rejects any absolute moral or ethical or theological standards. And yet, this concept of an unchanging and eternal Jesus is what Scripture challenges us as Christians to accept. I say it again: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Worthy of note is the fact that the author of Hebrews did not include the words, “until you decide you want to change Him.”

 

     There are huge implications for the Christian faith to what the author of Hebrews said in 10 words. The style of Christian worship can change over the centuries; the style of Christian music can change over the centuries; the place of Christian worship, the day of Christian worship – all subject to legitimate change, even if the change is merely to accommodate contemporary tastes. But the object of Christian worship does not change. Whatever liturgical forms we may use; whether we use Gregorian chants, or the music of Wesley or Christian rock; whether we have a choir with an organ or a band with singers and drums and guitars; whether we worship in a church or in a gymnasium or an auditorium or under the open skies; whether we worship Sunday or Saturday or any other day of the week – regardless of any of that – who we worship is Jesus; who we follow is Jesus; who we seek to pattern our lives after is Jesus. And this Jesus we speak of is not the Jesus hypothetically reconstructed by academics to suit their tastes and prejudices, but rather the Jesus who is revealed by the New Testament, the Jesus revealed by God, the Jesus Christ who “is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

 

     Why would we want any other Jesus? This is the Jesus Who has impacted the world for the last two thousand years. This is the Jesus Who has changed millions of lives for the last two thousand years, and Who will continue to change lives, transforming those who place their faith in Him more and more into His image day by day by day. This is the Jesus Who will be with us through all the trials and storms of life, and Who will never desert us for any reason. This is the Jesus Who will laugh with us and cry with us, and party with us and mourn with us. This is the Jesus Who is among us as we gather to worship, and Who goes with us into the world when we leave. Why do I know this? I know this because Jesus is not the creation of academics and scholars, but rather that He is the eternal Son of God, revealed by the Scriptures, revelaed to me and to you, and sent by God to be a part of our lives.

 

     When life becomes unsettled – as it does from time to time for us all – there's great comfort to be taken from the Bible's assurance that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” but the verse is about more than just comfort. It also serves in many ways as a rebuke against the tendency we all have to try to modify the words and teachings and even the character of Jesus when we decide that what we want or believe is more important than what Scripture tells us. It's all too easy for us to forget that we're not supposed to change Christ, we're supposed to be changed by Christ! He is, in fact, “the same yesterday and today and forever.” We are constantly being changed – hopefully becoming more and more like Him. In response, then, as the author of Hebrews encouraged us, 'Through Him … let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess His name.”