The events I have written in the first person are based on the texts of Scripture which I have included. I began by admitting that the interpretation is fanciful, very fanciful. In each case I tried to imagine how the Messiah might have felt, and I must have got the story wrong at many points. After all "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things invisible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first born from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell" (Colossians 1:15-19).
We have pictured Jesus as the one who was spoken of again and again in the Jewish Old Testament as the Lord King Messiah, and in the New Testament as the eternal Son of God. He comes into each person's history, as he did in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8-13). He also came to end the building of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), and the prophets describe his many comings among the nations. He allowed Assyria to terminate the northern kingdom, and it was the Messiah who brought Nebuchanezzar's Babylonian army to end the Jewish monarchy. Seventy years later it was Babylon's turn to be toppled by the Messiah in another Day of the Lord (Isaiah 13:1, 6-13).
The Messiah came to take birth among us for thirty years, and he announced that he would come again within the lives of his hearers to topple the religious establishment of Jerusalem (Matthew 23:33-36, 24:1-2, 23-34). In the Book of Revelation he is described as coming to deal with churches that were not performing their function (Revelation 2:5, 16, 3:3). The newspapers don't report this, and he has continued to reign by coming in great days of the Lord among the nations (See Advent Comings of the Lord among the Nations).
Obviously he comes to us in many different ways, and this book should encourage us to recognize him when he is on the prowl like Aslan in the C.S.Lewis' Narnia stories.
But he also allowed himself to be totally human. And he invites us to know "what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10) by the Spirit. That is why I have had the brashness to write in the first person and in his name. But as Mollie and I agreed when we began on the Day of Pentecost, June 11, 2000, the reality must have been far far more wonderful than anything we could conceive. The Messiah gives no logical proof to persuade us, but those who choose to serve in his royal priesthood find life totally rewarding (Exodus 19:5-6, 1 Peter 2:5-9). And that is just the foretaste.
As soon as we make a set of scientific, or historical, or psychological
observations, our minds inevitably construct a model to
explain the connection between them. In interacting with a person we
know, see in a film, or read about in a novel or biography
or newspaper account, we have a provisional model to explain the character's
behavior and inner motivation. The explanation
will often change radically as we see the person from new angles.
Great books delight us by surprising us in this way. A saint turns out
to be a rogue. A father who had appeared to be a monster
turns out to have loved his child. Holmes has seen the motive for murder
and says "Elementary my dear Watson."
In this sense this story of the Messiah is based on a model which I
have imagined from my observation of what I read in the
Bible. And every reader of this book began with a picture imagined
from Sunday School materials, sermons, or reading
devotional books. Hundreds of scholars have offered us lives of Jesus,
each claiming to be the correct historical picture. But
there is no such thing as a correct picture of anyone's life, least
of all the Messiah.
I have invited the reader to "look at it this way" or rather "look at
Him this way." Some will reject my vision outright. Others will
have used what I have written to make small changes in how they had
previously explained the Messiah's coming. The test is
whether the model is internally consistent and plausible, and then
whether it makes a helpful difference to the way we live our
life.