Close-Up Pictures of Jesus

A little child in Sunday school remarked, "Jesus is the best picture God ever had taken!"

There were no cameras to take pictures of Jesus in the first century, but from the eyewitness accounts recorded in Scripture we can construct a mental photo album of his life. One snapshot shows a baby born in Bethlehem—tiny and vulnerable, lying in a manger wrapped in strips of cloth. Another photo shows him as a boy of 12 in the temple amazing everyone with his understanding. Still another photo shows him at age 30 being baptized in the Jordan River.

As we keep turning the pages of this exciting photo album, we see Jesus feeding the multitudes, healing the sick, and blessing little children. We see him meeting one-on-one with Nicodemus and the woman at the well, and weeping by the graveside of Lazarus.

Someone has said that "the best pictures are developed in the darkest rooms." And so it is with Jesus. Through the eyes of faith we see him on his knees in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, with nails pounded through his hands and feet, with his body prepared for burial and laid in a tomb. And then we see him alive again, "risen just as he said."

An Eyewitness Account

The fisherman Simon Peter encountered Jesus face-to-face, and his conclusion is well-known: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). Years later when Peter wrote a letter to the churches, he had more to say. Who is Jesus, according to the book of First Peter?

He is the hope giver. In God's great mercy, "he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1:3).

He is the prophecy fulfiller. The prophets from centuries past "predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow" (1:11).

He is the ultimate revealer of God. "Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead" (1:21).

He is the founder and architect of the church, building us like "living stones . . . into a spiritual house" (2:5).

He is the model sufferer. "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps" (2:21). His suffering gives meaning and hope to ours. "If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name" (4:16).

He is the sin forgiver. We were redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect" who "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1:19, 2:24).

He is the flawless leader, "the Shepherd and Overseer" of our souls (2:25).

Like all of us, Peter certainly had some unanswered questions. But after rubbing shoulders with the Lord day after day, he could only say to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).

To whom shall we go? Nowhere else—if we get the picture.