Jim Lowe is editor and publisher of the Lampasas Dispatch Record. Some think of Him as the baby in the manger, the son of a peasant couple, Mary and Joseph.

To others perhaps, He brings to mind the image of a carpenter. In the mind of still others, He is a powerful moral example, the leader of one of the great religions of the world.

Most of us have an image in our mind’s eye of Jesus, shaped by something we have heard in a sermon or have seen in a painting or sculpture.

For some 2,000 years, people have defined who Jesus is. But, when given the opportunity, what did He say about Himself?

Thanks to some of His closest associates, we get an interesting glimpse into His thoughts. What I find fascinating about the Gospel accounts is that they help us to be a fly on the wall, privy to those personal conversations Christ had with His followers.

On one such occasion, the Lord essentially asked His disciples: “Who do people say I am?”

To which they replied: Some say John the Baptist -- the forerunner of Christ; others say Elijah or Jeremiah -- famous prophets mentioned in the Old Testament.

But, the Lord, as He often did, zeroed in on the perceptions of the men who walked with and ministered alongside Him.

“But what about you?” He asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Simon Peter, whom some say was the most American of the disciples -- because he spoke his mind, often blurting out something before he stopped to think about the consequences of his remarks -- answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

In today’s parlance, Peter got it right.

Jesus commended His impetuous disciple, saying that such an insight had not come to Peter by any other human, but by God Himself.

What really staggers the mind, I believe, is that Jesus is God -- the second person of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit). That’s what “the deity of Christ” means in a nutshell -- Jesus claimed to be God.

“I and the Father are one,” He said.

He had just been asked: “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

When He spoke plainly to his listeners, they picked up stones to kill him, because, in their own words, “You, a mere man, claim to be God.”

The Apostle Paul had this to say about Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

That’s pretty all-inclusive.

He also wrote of the Savior: “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.”

The word “Incarnation” has been explained as God taking on human form, in the person of the babe in the manger, and living on earth -- if only for a brief 33 years.

Yes, Jesus was the babe in the stable of Bethlehem. He was a carpenter and, if you will, an itinerant evangelist.

As Peter said in his now-famous declaration, Jesus is the “Christ,” or Messiah. He also is God.

A song by Kathy Mattea, entitled “Mary, Did You Know?”, says everything I’ve been trying to say, but so much more eloquently. I highly commend it to you this Christmas season.

From stanza to stanza, one great thought gives way to another, in beautifully artistic fashion. The song poses a series of questions to Mary, the mother of Jesus. In perhaps the most telling portion of the musical composition, we hear this penetrating thought: “Mary, did you know.../ That your baby boy has walked where angels trod? /And when you kiss your little boy /You’ve kissed the face of God.”

The concluding words resonate with significance, too, because they are a question for the ages.

“Did you know /That your baby boy is heaven’s perfect lamb? /This sleeping child you’re holding /Is the great I AM.”