Was Jesus a Lunatic?

Jesus said some crazy things. Here’s one example in John chapter 6, verse 51, he said,

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life, the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

What would you think if you saw someone standing on the street corner proclaiming, “I am the bread that came down from heaven, eat me and you’ll live forever?” You’d probably think that guy was a lunatic. Is Jesus a lunatic? Very few people will say that. Often Jesus is spoken of as a good moral teacher. C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, addressed that issue of calling Jesus a good moral teacher. He said,

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him. [That is Christ.] I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic, on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon. Or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

So is Jesus a lunatic? Obviously, Lewis concludes, he is not. I wonder what caused Lewis to conclude that? Jesus’ resurrection is the proof that everything he said was true. Again, in that crazy verse, he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. Jesus was God in the flesh or more properly, is God in the flesh. He became man so that he could live a perfect life under God’s law, fulfilling it in our place. And he became man so that he could suffer and die in our place on the cross, making the necessary payment for our sins.

So Jesus came down from heaven to be our Savior. He then said,

If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life, the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

In John chapter 6 here, it’s clear that eating Jesus’ flesh was being equated with believing. If you believe that Jesus came down from heaven to live a perfect life in your place and to die the death that your sins demand, then you have eternal life. You will live forever. How can we know this is true? How can we know that Jesus isn’t just a crazy man? It’s because he rose from the dead. Yes, Jesus lived and died, that is well-established, but he rose from the dead as God’s seal of approval on all that he did. Because Jesus rose again. You can know he’s not crazy. He’s telling you the truth.

Through his life, death and resurrection. All of your sins are paid for. Because of Jesus, God now loves you and has made you an heir of heaven. So it may sound crazy at surface value, but when you look at what Jesus said and what Jesus did, you can know he’s not crazy. He’s not a lunatic. He’s the world’s Savior from sin. May God grant you His Spirit so that you believe what Jesus said and can have the life that only he gives you. Peace be with you. Amen.