Just who is Jesus? He is the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. He is mighty God and Prince of Peace. The ultimate event that makes our faith sure and certain is the dramatic and triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, His most sacred passion and death on Good Friday and His glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. If not for the Resurrection of our Lord, no one would have looked back over Jesus’ life and public ministry and with 20/20 hindsight realized that He was God all along. The resurrection gives us this 20/20 hindsight. It also leads the author of the Gospel of Saint John to declare that Jesus is the eternal Word of God.
If you kept up with the silliness of Scriptural studies immediately following Vatican II in the mid 1960s, you would have heard theologians who should have known better using a method of Scripture study that tried to study the Gospels without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that the Resurrection of Jesus affords us. For these “scholars” there is a disconnect between the Jesus of the Gospels and the “real” Jesus of His public ministry. This means that no one, not even His apostles believed that He was actually God incarnate (presumably also His Blessed Mother) and that even Jesus didn’t know His true identity until he arose on the “third day.”
Suffice it to say that studying Jesus without the benefit of the Gospel’s 20/20 hindsight is an exercise in futility. Trying to get to the “real Jesus” of His public ministry stripped of Gospel 20/20 hindsight faith has led many people to have their faith stripped down too. It has led them to see Jesus just as another “good old boy” no different than you or I except he seemed to love people better than anyone else and was inclusive of them and allowed for all kinds of moral and immoral diversity.
And now you know the rest of the story of this getting back to the “real” Jesus of His public ministry. It comes from people who have a political agenda within the Catholic Church. Some of the key words they use for Jesus are “inclusive”, “non-judgmental”, “friend”, “buddy”, “brother”, and all around nice guy. This then opens the door to the Church not being a challenge to current cultural trends in society and government. This type of “real” Jesus, which has no basis in the Gospels, then allows for same sex marriage, condoning fornication and adultery, embracing the sinner and also the sin. It also opens the door for all kinds of silly and irreverent celebrations of the Holy Mass and other liturgies.
For my part, if I were to actually believe what these scholars and those with a political agenda in the Church teach about the “real” Jesus, I would have long ago converted to Judaism or some other world religion. But more than likely I would have just become an atheist trying to be as good of a person as possible but as materialistic as possible too. What’s the point of following the “real” Jesus if He isn’t what the Gospels and Church teaching say He is? That would be like following Oprah. She has a great following and to many people her word is gospel. We have an Oprah already; do we need to “Oprahize” Jesus? I think not!
So Jesus of the Gospel with 20/20 resurrection hindsight is Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Prince of Peace and mighty God! We owe Him our obedience, our life and our love. We are grateful stewards of all that God has given us. We have no hesitation in giving back to God and the Church His Son founded a portion of our time, talent and treasure, because Jesus is who the Gospels and Church teachings say He is. We have one Oprah, that’s enough. We have only One God and He is Jesus, God incarnate. Follow Him and put all other idols to rest.
