5 Alister McGrath - How can we make sense of Jesus?

Hello again. This is Alister McGrath of Oxford University, with the fifth of a series of articles exploring some aspects of Christianity. As I promised in the previous article, we are now going to explore the place of Jesus Christ in the Christian faith, and tease out some of the themes that help us understand his significance.

So how can we make sense of Christ? How can we locate him on a conceptual map? How does his story relate to our stories?

I discovered Christianity when I was a student at Oxford University. Up to that point, I had tended to think of Christ as a religious teacher, who had some interesting ideas about God and how to live the good life; that these were rooted in the distant past, and had little relevance for me today. Christ was a primitive religious teacher, dispensing outdated ideas that seemed perfectly reasonable to credulous Galilean peasants but had nothing to say to my own more critical and sophisticated age. It was not that I rejected Christ at this point; it was more that I felt he was not worth bothering about, particularly when compared with Karl Marx, for whom I had developed a fashionable (and somewhat uncritical) enthusiasm in the heady days of the late 1960s.

Yet as I began to engage Christianity seriously as a student at Oxford University, it soon became clear that this was a very inadequate way of understanding the complex and rich witness of the New Testament to the identity and significance of Christ. I had a lot to learn, and it took me a long time to absorb it all.

So how can we make sense of Christ? How can we locate him on a conceptual map? How does his story relate to our stories? How can an event which took place at a specific time and place be relevant for all people and all times? How on earth are we to make sense of the momentous events packed into a tiny slice of human history that we call ‘Jesus of Nazareth’? In the next few articles, I’m going to explore some of these questions.

I’ve often found it helpful to focus on Mark’s gospel, which is certainly the shortest (and probably the earliest) of the four gospels. Mark invites us to stand alongside the first disciples as they encounter Jesus, and begin to reflect on who he is, and what he means. A good starting point is the familiar story of the calling of Simon and his brother Andrew on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee (Mark 1:16-18). Jesus approaches them and, without telling them anything about who he is, invites them to follow him. There seems to have been something compelling about this mysterious figure that commanded their attention and their trust. They left everything behind, and followed him, beginning their journey of discernment and discovery.

Yet Jesus did rather more than just teach about the kingdom of God; he healed people, as a sign of this coming kingdom.

Mark allows us to stand alongside the disciples, hearing what Jesus said and watching what he did. Yet as the disciples continue their physical journey around the villages near Galilee, they found another journey taking place in their minds and imaginations – the gradual dawning of insight into the true identity of this strange person. As they listened and observed, they tried to locate Jesus using the mental maps they had inherited from Judaism.

At first, this seemed very easy. Jesus was clearly a religious teacher, a kind of rabbi, even if he stood out from other teachers because of the quality and authority of his teaching. Mark tells us that people ‘were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority’ (Mark 1:22). Yet Jesus did rather more than just teach about the kingdom of God; he healed people, as a sign of this coming kingdom. He seemed able to command the forces of nature: ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?’ (Mark 4:35-41).

One incident which took place very early in his ministry is particularly important in helping us to put together the ‘big picture’ about Jesus – the healing of a paralytic (Mark 2:1-12). We know that Jesus had drawn large crowds on account of ministry of teaching and healing. Hoping that Jesus could help their paralysed friend, four people carried him to meet Christ. Here’s how Mark describes what happened.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ (Mark 2:5-7).

Continued below...

The ‘scribes’ – experts in the Jewish law – were quite right. Only God could forgive sin. Jesus seemed to be claiming to be able to do something that only God could do – forgive sins. So what did this episode have to say about who Jesus was, and what Jesus could do?

For Christians, Jesus is not merely someone who informs us, but someone who transforms us.

But let’s stand back and try to appreciate an important point. Mark’s account of the ministry of Jesus presents him as a teacher, a healer, a prophet, and a saviour. These are all part of his identity and significance. We are not being asked to choose which of these we think best describes him. Rather, we have to realise that he embraces and enfolds them all.

Yes, Jesus is a religious teacher. His ‘Sermon on the Mount’ continues to challenge and enrich Christians. Yet the New Testament makes it clear that there is more – much more – to Jesus than this. He plays many roles, and serves many functions – yet all of these converge on making it possible for us to come to God, to know God, and to be transformed by God. For Christians, Jesus is not merely someone who informs us, but someone who transforms us. Christianity is not really about a set of ideas, but about a new way of living which includes (but is not limited to!) ideas.

As I discovered myself, reading the gospels is really about embarking on a journey of discovery which allows us to explore the many facets of Jesus, and how these connect up with us. Each of them speaks to us and connects to us in different ways, as we shall see. It’s an important point. The first disciples began by discovering Jesus as a charismatic individual, who called them to follow him. As they journeyed with him, their understanding of him acquired depth, detail and complexity.

The sixteenth-century Spanish spiritual writer Teresa of Avila suggested that trying to make sense of Christ is like exploring a house with many rooms.

The sixteenth-century Spanish spiritual writer Teresa of Avila suggested that trying to make sense of Christ is like exploring a house with many rooms. Once you’ve become familiar with one room, you discover that the next room is even more interesting. Each room seems to build on the previous one, expanding and enlarging our vision of the house as a whole.

Christ is not defined by any one of his roles – such as teacher, prophet or saviour. He is all of these things. That’s one of the reasons why Christian theologians have realised that they needed to find a ‘big picture’ of Christ that was able to weave together the New Testament’s complex and rich witness to his identity and importance. So let’s begin thinking about Christ’s importance in the next article by looking at the idea that Christ is saviour. What does that mean? And what difference does it make to us? I will look forward to exploring this question in the next article in this series.



Alister McGrath is Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. His latest book is What’s the Point of Theology? Wisdom, Wellbeing and Wonder, published recently by SPCK.