Jesus assures his disciples, “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world” (Jn 16: 33).
It would be altogether ridicules to ask whether or not these words, as recorded by St. John, are the ‘historical words’ of Jesus.Clearly, they are the words of the Risen, Living Lord Jesus Christ.They are words addressed to the disciples, addressed to John’s community, addressed to us today, by Jesus himself, from his place as Lord at the right hand of the Father.
This affords us the opportunity to reflect a bit further on the Ascension reality that Jesus is Lord.This phrase, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ is the most precise and earliest of Christian creedal statements.It is, in other words, the most ancient Christian statement of belief.Those who encountered Jesus Christ in the preaching and breaking of the bread encountered the one who had ‘conquered the world’ and now draws all things to life.This short phrase, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ brings expression to the essence of the experience people who encountered Jesus in the preaching of the apostles had.
I recall sitting with a young couple preparing them for marriage.At some point in our discussion, they informed me that they had ‘reserved’ a time in a park somewhere to have the wedding.Now this was a problem.It was because Catholic weddings are held in a Church, not a park.Catholics get married in a Church because their marriage is not viewed as simply a ‘private thing’, between themselves and their family and friends.It is, rather, an ecclesial, a Church ‘thing’ and their marriage is to be a sacramental sign of God’s covenantial love for his People.When I informed this couple, a really faithful and generous young couple, of this fact, they were not just a little disappointed.And they wondered, out loud to me, how can the Church ‘tell them where to have their wedding.’I attempted to explain it to them by going back to the fundamental reality of our Christian existence.I asked if they recalled our Baptismal promises.“Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?”“Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit…?”Of course they recalled all that and certainly they responded with a yes to each of these baptismal questions.I then asked them what the implications might be that we affirm that Jesus is Lord.
It is a good question.That word, Lord, is not a small word.It is a word, as a matter of fact, containing a relational implication most modern Americans are not altogether comfortable with, I would bet.To say someone is Lord is to say some others are in submission to this ‘Lord’.Of course, most of us prize very much our autonomy.To have a ‘Lord’, however, implies that we are not autonomous in relation to this other.That this other, who is Lord, can command and direct our lives.The one who is Lord can say, “Go here,” and we go; or, “Do this,” and we do it.It is an altogether ‘weighty’ word with immense implications.
You see, the phrase ‘Jesus is Lord’ is what the biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson calls a “performative statement” which means that it is “a statement that finds its sense not only as a declaration about reality but as a declaration concerning how the speaker really lives” (Living Jesus:Learning the Heart of the Gospel, 5-6).To say, then, that Jesus is Lord is to say that I have submitted my life to his teaching, his way, his living voice directing my life.It is to say, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
I went on to speak to that young couple about Jesus’ living presence in the Church, how he continues to speak and direct the lives of his disciples and he does so most explicitly through the Church.So, if the Church asks you to have your wedding in a Church building, and this impinges on your freedom to have it where you might want, it ought not come as such a big surprise.If Jesus is Lord, then there will be times that my freedom and my desire must give way to his command.The case of where they would hold their wedding was an expression in their lives at that moment, most concretely, that Jesus is Lord and that they have in fact placed themselves under his authority.
I wonder, where do we encounter the Lordship of Jesus over our personal lives?If Jesus is Lord of our lives it is to be expected that at times his directing of my life will impinge on the direction I would want to go.Where has that happened in my life?How has my faith statement, Jesus is Lord, effected the way I really live my life?