Horizons Bible Study 2016-2017
Who is Jesus? What a Difference a Lens Makes
Lesson 8: Jesus According to Other Abrahamic Faiths
Grocery shopping today can be a cross-cultural event. In certain stores, I hear Spanish, Asian and Eastern European languages. I see Muslim and Hindu women, distinctive in their lovely dress. I enjoy the parade of people. Growing up, my world was very “white Protestant” with no mixing of races and faiths. I had two Jewish friends and one Catholic, but I did not attend their worship and knew little about their faith.
It is a very different world now. In order to interact well with Muslims and Jews, it is important to know what we have in common and how differently we see Jesus.
Abraham is important to all three faiths. In Genesis 12:1-3, God calls Abraham and his household to leave their homeland. God promises that through Abraham’s innumerable descendants all families of the earth would be blessed. God calls Abraham and his descendants to be a community that will “keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18:19). As noted in our study, Abraham stands at the beginning of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For Jews, Abraham is the founder of the faith. For Christians, Abraham is also “an exemplar of faith and the spiritual forebear of Jesus,” while Islam understands Abraham as a prophet.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam all are monotheistic faiths with the belief that there is only one God. This one God is the creator of all that is and will be. God alone is good, merciful and just.
Prophets are important to each faith tradition. Prophets are those who receive a special revelation from God about who God is and God’s will for our lives. Prophets are not fortune-tellers who predict the future. Though prophets do talk about the future, they bring the message of God’s word and how God calls us to live.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam share the understanding that our faith is a way of life and that we are accountable to God for our actions. Each faith teaches that we are to care for the poor, be kind to one’s neighbor, pray daily, study and meditate on sacred texts, worship and be obedient to the one God.
Though there are values and practices shared among Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jesus Christ is an obstacle for many. As the Apostle Paul said, Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord is a problem. “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23).
Christ Jesus is a problem for several reasons. First, Christian theology affirms that Jesus is both fully human and fully God. Jews and Muslims don’t buy that God can be human or that God suffers. A suffering God violates the purity, holiness and all-powerful nature of God. That God would suffer the humiliation of the cross is unthinkable for people of other faiths.
Actually, Christians have had trouble with divine suffering as well. Since the early church, people who affirm Jesus’ divinity have minimized or denied Jesus’ humanity. Well-known writer and Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, was supply preaching when she arrived at the church early to get organized and found a woman polishing silver candlesticks for the altar. After speaking to her, Taylor went to the front of the church to gaze at a portrait of Jesus on the cross clad in only a loincloth. It was luminous and struck her as both beautiful and somewhat strange. The woman came into the sanctuary, and Taylor commented, “You know what is odd about this depiction of Jesus? He has no body hair.” The woman was appalled by the thought.
Islam can value Jesus as a God-inspired prophet, and Judaism can see Jesus as a rabbinic teacher, but neither faith affirms Jesus as God or Messiah. The affirmation that Jesus is the Son of God for Islam and other faiths threatens the worship of one God. I was once in a workshop with a theologian who was born in Indonesia. In her country, Christians are viewed by other faiths as polytheistic. It appears that we worship more than one God in talking about God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
For Christianity, the Son being fully divine and fully human are equally important. That the Son is fully human means that he can empathize with our sorrows and joy. Shirley Guthrie wrote that the incarnation means that “God is not too high and mighty, too good, too holy, or too proud to come down to our level to participate in earthly human life.” That the Son is fully divine affirms that we have an advocate in the very heart of God.
Rosalind Banbury is associate pastor for adult ministries at First Church in Richmond, Virginia.
