Have you read “The Legend of Jesus”? In it, His brothers are among His first followers. They grew up with Him after all. In “The Legend of Jesus,” Jesus doesn’t get tired, and He doesn’t rest by the well in Samaria or fall asleep in the boat. The crowds don’t turn away from Him, and the disciples just seem to get it. They don’t keep dozing off in the garden when Jesus asks them to pray. And Peter certainly doesn’t cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant or deny that he’s one of Jesus’ followers. In “The Legend of Jesus,” Jesus doesn’t pray for the Father to let Him off the hook. And He doesn’t need a stranger to help Him carry the cross. Even after that terrible beating, Jesus is able to carry His own cross along with those of the two thieves who were crucified with Him. “The Legend of Jesus” is amazing. The only problem is that it doesn’t exist. There is no “Legend of Jesus.” What we have instead are the gospels.

Two of them (Matthew and John) were written by Jesus’ disciples. One of them, Mark, was close to Peter (1 Peter 5:13) and likely got his information from him. Luke was a doctor (Colossians 4:14) and a co-worker with Paul who wrote his gospel as a research project (Luke 1:1-4) the way a journalist or historian might. They record fantastic claims about a person who claimed to be God (John 8:58; 10:30; Mark 2:5-7), was worshipped as God (John 20:28), and whose life, death, and resurrection give evidence that He is God. But because the claims are unusual, people want to read them as legends.

There was a woman who had been in one of our Bible studies for months when she said, “I don’t know what to do with the gospels. They’re much more than just biographies. But they don’t quite read like legends either. How am I supposed to read them?” She was trying to read them without conceding any of the God stuff, and she found that hard to do. They felt too historical, too personal, and too detailed to dismiss as legends, so she was looking for another alternative. What she was trying to avoid was the conclusion that they were honest accounts of amazing events. And yet as you read them, it’s hard to conclude anything else.

C. S. Lewis held positions in English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge and came to faith in his 30s. In the essay, “What Are We To Make of Jesus?”, he wrote:

“Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don't work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so.”

The gospels are just the kind of accounts you would expect to see from people who had witnessed the intrusion of God into human history and wanted the world to hear about Him.

May God speak to you as you hear them today.

In awe of Him,

Paul

P. S. If this is new to you and you think it’s something you’d like to explore, I’ve written a free, 12-week course called The Unstuck Life that walks you through the essentials of Jesus’ teachings in daily, bite-sized messages that you can read or watch by video. To learn more, click on the image below.