The Secret Identity of Jesus
Introduction
As a young person, I loved comic books. For quite a while I had a number of thousand of comics. I started by reading army comics but eventually moved onto superheroes. While I no longer collect comics, I still enjoy superhero movies.
If you pay attention to these characters, you will realize that they are not all the same. Take for example, two of the most popular superheroes: Batman and Superman. These two are very different. The differences go beyond one having superpowers and the other not. It goes down to their identity.
For those not familiar, Batman’s real name is Bruce Wayne. There was nothing about him that would demand that he would become the Batman. But after witnessing his parents’ murder, he trained and took on the identity of Batman. Bruce Wayne chose to become Batman.
Superman is different. What is Superman’s real name? That’s complicated. He was born Kal-El on the planet Krypton but was sent to Earth when his home planet exploded. He was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent and became known as Clark Kent. Superman is both Kal-El and Clark Kent in a way different from Bruce Wayne’s secret identity. Superman is both alien superhero and human reporter. He doesn’t pretend to be something he is not.
What does this have to do with Jesus? Jesus also had a secret identity. It was one they kept to himself for most of his earthly ministry. In fact when the demons would try to reveal his identity, he would shut them up. But that identity could not be kept secret forever. The truth came out at his trial.
The Son of God on Trial
As followers of Jesus, we probably have a pretty good idea of who Jesus was and is. When we call ourselves Christians, we are affirming that Jesus was the Christ or the Anointed One. But things were not so simple during his earthly ministry. Jesus didn’t have business cards printed with the job title of “Messiah and Son of God.” In fact, when Jesus referred to himself as anything, it was as “the Son of Man.” The Son of Man had a double meaning. It was a reference to a prophecy in Daniel that spoke of one like a son of man who was given authority by the Ancient of Days. It had a messianic meaning. But Son of Man also meant just human being. So it was safe for Jesus to use. His followers would gradually discover that he was the Son of Man of Daniel but those who did not know him, would see him as another human being. Every once in a while, there would be someone or something that knew who Jesus really was. Jesus actively sought to guard his secret identity. But now Jesus was on trial.
There were actually two trials. One was a religious trial and the other the criminal trial. The Romans would charge him with sedition, that is being a political threat to Rome’s rule. The religious leaders were charging Jesus with blasphemy. But to do this, they had to establish what Jesus was claiming about himself. In the trial, Jesus was directly asked about who he was.
First he was asked if he was the messiah, another world for Christ or Anointed One. Jesus knew that they were not asking out of a desire to know the truth. They were looking for a charge by which they could condemn him. He called them on their disbelief and then he referred to Psalm 110, which was a messianic Psalm. “The Lord says to my lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” They would have understood that reference. This Psalm refers to two lords. One is the Lord, the God of Israel. Jesus identified himself with the other lord, which by this time was understood as more than just another human leader. So they asked Jesus if he was the Son of God, a much more serious charge than just the Messiah. Jesus gives a strange answer. He doesn’t want to play their game but he is not going to deny who he is either. So when they ask if he is the Son of God, something they don’t believe, Jesus suggests that they are actually confessing his true identity. This is similar to something the Apostle Paul would say later that all people will eventually confess Jesus, whether in belief or disbelief.
The Son of God For Us
Some people may have believed that Jesus was only a human teacher that some interesting things to say. But now the secret was out. Clark Kent had taken off his glasses and the truth was revealed. But what does that mean for us?
It would be very easy for us to overlook this passage of the religious trial and only focus on Jesus before Pilate. But what happens here is crucial for us to understand everything that would happen next, especially Jesus’ death on the cross.
What if Jesus was only Clark Kent? What if Jesus was just a human being? We would see him as an innocent man that was unjustly accused of a crime. We would look at him and pity him. We would see this as a tragedy that should never have happened. We might even question why God would allow this?
This is why Muslims deny that Jesus was crucified. They see Jesus as a righteous man and that God rescued him from the cross because of how good Jesus was. God would not allow such an act of injustice to a great prophet.
But this passage points us in a different direction. While Jesus was human and there was injustice here, there was more to the story. Jesus was both Clark Kent and Kal-El. Jesus was both human and divine. Jesus was the Son of Man, he was the Messiah, he was the Son of God. While the religious leaders thought they were in control, they were mistaken. God was intervening on behalf of the human race. A sacrifice was about to made that could only be done by one who was both human God. Jesus was about to bridge the divide between God and humanity by his death on the cross. The powers of death and sin were about to be defeated. And that could only take place because of who Jesus was.
What Jesus says to the religious leaders here moves the cross from being a meaningless to tragedy to being the means of salvation.
Conclusion
There are those who believe that Jesus is like Batman, that he was a normal human who was thrust into special circumstances and chose to take on a role. Jesus much more like Superman, and not just in the sense of power. When most people look at Clark Kent, they see the mild mannered reporter who was raised in Smallville, Kanas. But there is much more to Kent, he is a strange visitor from another planet. When people looked at Jesus, they saw the carpenter from Nazareth. But there was more than meets the eye. Jesus was also the Messiah and Son of God. It was because of this secret identity that Jesus could accomplish what he did on the cross. If Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, then the cross means nothing and we are lost. But Jesus was who he said he was and that means that the enemy has been defeated.
