Titus 2:11-14
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Picture Jesus. How do you see him carrying himself? Can you visualize his personality? Lively or deliberate? Chatty or measured? Patient or impulsive? Was he generally more cheerful or more somber? How does he come across? Single-minded or open-minded? We could probably identify times when Jesus was any one of these, but there must be a prevailing outline of the man, wouldn’t you think? If he were with us this morning for Matins the way he was commonly with his disciples, wouldn’t he be other than all the rest of us just as we know one another individually?
We are regularly aware of the curious eccentricities of people. By their different personal habits and preferences, people show themselves individually unique. There is an expression I remember hearing as a boy, “Everyone’s queer but me and thee … and sometimes even thee’s a little queer.” But if I’m the only one who isn’t queer (everyone else is—even you), is that not queer in its own right? The opposite of queer would be ordinary, but should we think of Jesus as ordinary? Just an ordinary guy?
A lot of people claim to be just ordinary folks, average, run of the mill type, but of Jesus, I don’t think that sounds quite right, do you? Actually, I don’t think we even know what the “everyman” is because even among twins or copycat siblings or the best of impersonators, no two human beings are actually alike which means nobody is ordinary. There’s no standard for ordinary. I’m not sure we even have a standard for abnormal.
Observing people is terribly interesting because the variety in people seems endless. In other words, we are all somewhat odd, are we not? Most of us, I think, would quickly say Jesus is extraordinary and special, but isn't that merely a euphemism for odd?
So, was Jesus odd? He must have been. Jesus is a human being just like us except for the corruption of sin, and sin surely is not just an oddity or curiosity in us. Sin is comprehensive. Sin is the blight on every aspect of my nature, personality, and behavior. Without Christ, sin is the singular constant of everything in me. I don’t merely display an assortment of sins. Without Christ I am the epitome of sin—the personification of sin. I am sin, and because of it, I am absolutely boring. I don’t have to my name a single uncharacteristically good works, none, or fortuitous virtue. As a sinner, I haven’t even one wild and crazy good point. To be in sin is like being suspended in a deathly, monotonous black hole. Sin doesn’t make us fascinating. Sin doesn’t make us exceptional. My sin has reduced me to the lowest common denominator. Sin has a monopoly on me and it is a monotony. Same with you.
So, morally speaking, we are all absolutely the same: all unrighteous, all corrupt (not just damaged but thoroughly and absolutely rotten to the core). Jesus was the oddball. He was the one exception. He was special. He was extraordinary. He was the only true man on the face of the earth, the only real man, the only man who was a straight up guy.
Though the Bible gives no specifics, Jesus had to have had particular physical attributes like eye color, height, weight, and features suggestive of his mother Mary’s lineage. We must assume he had either a tenor, baritone, or bass voice, wouldn’t you think? Would he not then also have his own very distinctive human psychology, emotional sensitivities, and talents? He was his own person.
Yet, what did this man with such a priceless array of human attributes, this way out of the ordinary man do. He took on our sin. He became one of us in the humiliation of no longer being special, of no longer being unusual, of no longer being distinctly righteous. He became sin.
He became sin for us, taking on the deathly, monotonous black hole of death that we might become the righteousness of God in him … that we might now become those oddball Christians who don’t conform to patterns of this world, having been transformed. Christians are the fools who not only believe the Word of God made the universe but the Word of God made us alive by faith in Christ.
We Christians are the fools who don’t care whether a man is black or white, rich or poor, able or incapable, who don’t distinguish people by their personalities or talents, their popularity or their powers. All we care about is delivering the grace of God in Christ to every last human being on earth. And that is not done on the strength of personality, celebrity, talent, amiability, exceptionality, or variety.
That is done on the strength of the Gospel, the person and work of Jesus Christ whose ways and means are as odd as it comes. A little splash of water with His Word washes away all sin. A bite of bread and sip of wine consecrated by His command and promise unite us with the living God. A declaration of forgiveness, concise to a few words spoken by a called pastor in the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit instantly and permanently erases every moral flaw and transgress.
How odd that we should believe being last is to be first, to be poor In spirit is to be truly rich, to be dead in Christ is to be alive forevermore, and to gain our life we must loose it. We are a peculiar people. And we surely worship an uncommon Lord.
There is a well-known epigram you may have heard, “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” Of course, it isn't odd at all if you know the mercy, love, sacrifice, faithfulness, and grace of God, if you know that Jesus chose to die in our place and elected us to be His own, not because of anything special or exceptional in us, but solely for His own Name’s sake.
I’ll take those kind of “odds” any day!
