Will the Real Jesus Please Stand up?

Copyright 2013, Used by Permission

It seems to me there are a lot of impostors out there. 

When I was a kid we watched a show called "To Tell the Truth." I am dating myself here, but the way it went, to the best of my memory, was this: A celebrity guest would face three guests claiming to be a certain person. Two were impostors and one was the real deal. The celebrity's challenge was to question all three and figure out who was being truthful. At the inquisitor's questions, the impostors could lie their heads off to trick the guest, but the authentic person had to tell the truth. 

I sometimes get the feeling we are in the position of the celebrity guest, having to discern between various claimants to the role of Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. 

In this case, the question is: Who is the real Jesus Christ among a myriad of impostors? 

It is easy to lose sight of who Jesus really is if we are not diligently grounding our minds and hearts in the truth. 

Sometimes it becomes difficult to see the forest for the trees. 

The trees may be the details of the administration of ministry, the church committee work, or the day in and day out tasks required to run religious education “programs” and service “projects” in order to further the work of the kingdom. These things may be necessary and fruitful, but they can become distractions from true encounter when they become idols. 

The trees may be the constantly spouted opinions of others concerning the identity of Jesus. These come from the armchair theologians we meet every day in society, and even in our own Church, and from hyper-educated, obnoxiously vocal, dissident theologians of the universities (sadly some Catholic in name). These opinions confuse and even, at times, scandalize the disciples of Jesus.

The trees may be the specks in our own eyes, specks of sin which blind us to certain truths that if faced with humility promise (and threaten) to convert us and make us truly happier. Sometimes our attachments to certain sins tempt us to remake the Lord to fit into our lifestyle so that we do not have to feel accountable for our sins. 

The forest is the Gospel, the whole kit and caboodle, as it were. The forest is the real deal, the big picture that God paints for us. It is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Church, and Divine Revelation--- Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture--- it is the whole shebang of God’s self revelation to humanity.

With the advent of the technological age, it has become more confusing to discern the true Jesus from the impostors. The Jesus impostors are proclaimed everywhere, all the time.

A Saccharine Jesus

In the classic, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury depicts a future society in which books are forbidden. Books are burned. Books are dangerous. They promote intellectual inquiry. They stir the heart in deep places (better to keep people happy in a superficial sense: anesthetize them with superficial treats and entertainment and they will be "happy" enough not to strive for real happiness, a striving which threatens the status quo). A society such as this calls for the sanitization of all that is true, beautiful, and good. In such a society there is no place for the radicality of the real Jesus.

In the following scene, Guy Montag, Fireman, book-burner, whose heart has been stirred by his walking visits with a delightfully alive young woman and his recent encounter with the content of books he dangerously nicked during book burnings, visits an old man, a subversive lover of books, and shows him a Bible from his secret collection. 

Faber, the old man, reverently thumbs through the old Bible:

"It’s been a long time. I’m not a religious man. But it’s been a long time." Faber turned the pages, stopping here and there to read. "It’s as good as I remember. Lord, how they’ve changed it in our 'parlors' these days. Christ is one of the 'family' now. I often wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we’ve dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He’s a regular peppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercial products that every worshiper absolutely needs."

The old man’s words seem particularly prophetic.

Does the Father recognize the Jesus we have dressed up (or dressed down)? Have we recreated Jesus in our fallen image? Is this Jesus a “regular peppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercial products that every worshiper absolutely needs”? Is our society attempting to sweeten Jesus? Has this sweetened Jesus been used to serve society's attempts to push its anti-gospel gospel?

It seems to me that the Jesus of popular opinion is a salesman for many agendas. He is the supporter of this cause and that. Whether it is as the gun-toting rebel Lord of some Liberation Theology, or the rainbow-sashed, smiley divine advocate for same-sex marriage, or the Jesus who denies his own many words about the reality and danger of hell, or the new-age guru Jesus who isn't about commandments but is all about feelings, or, on the other hand, the Jesus that looks upon us with disgust because we don’t practice particular forms of Catholic piety deemed salvific by self-appointed, opinionated proclaimers of "truth," the Jesus that many seem intent on giving us is a Jesus that does not jibe with the Jesus of Divine Revelation.

Rediscovering the Real Lord

Do you ever experience a strong pull to return to the Gospels, to read them through again as if it’s your first time? 

Do you ever long to meet Christ again in the pages of Scripture, to encounter Him in a new way, to let Him ask you all over again, “But who do you say that I am?”

The words of Blessed Charles de Foucauld are instructive:

We must read and re-read the Gospel without stopping, so that we will have the spirit, deeds, words, and thoughts of Jesus before us so that we may one day think, talk, and act as he did.

Perhaps this Advent is a good time for us to sit down with the Gospels and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and through them encounter the Lord--- in fact, a prayer for Him to lift our blindness as we “hear” Him in the text would be fitting--- in a new and real way.