A while back, I attended a meeting at a local, non-Lutheran congregation. Their building wasn’t always a church. Their store-front sanctuary shares a few walls and a parking lot with other businesses. When I stepped inside, though, it was unmistakably a house of worship. Aside from the typical layout of chairs and podiums, the wall behind the stage was emblazoned with the words, “Jesus is Lord.”
I was early for the meeting, and so before starting up a conversation with some of the other pastors present, I pondered those words for a few moments. I read them over and over. “Jesus is Lord.”
We hear these three words all the time. Saying them is one way for folks to identify their religious preferences to others. If you want someone to know you are a Christian, you can simply exclaim, “Jesus is Lord!” But, as I stared at those words on the wall of that sanctuary, they began to sound less like a complete declaration of faith and more like a prompt— the first half of a statement, asking me to fill in the blank and complete the sentence. Jesus is Lord… of what?
Jesus is Lord of my life. But what parts of my life?
Jesus is Lord of Heaven and Earth.
But how does that truth affect the world we live in?
In the first century, those three words were dangerous. They were a challenge to the dominance of Caesar and all the cruelty and selfishness of the Roman Empire. Things are different today. Those three words no longer carry the same weight. In fact, aside from simply indicating our personal beliefs, they can lose meaning altogether. In a world where being Christian carries very little risk, our statements of faith can become overly spiritualized and disconnected from the world God created. What difference does it make to the world when we say “Jesus is Lord”?
Allow me to try and give some weight to such a declaration. Jesus is Lord of me. Jesus is Lord of all people. Jesus is Lord of the changing seasons, the migrations of birds and people, the cycle of death and new life we hold in our hands every time we dig at the earth or rake up a pile of oak leaves. Jesus is Lord of the hungry and the wealthy, those in power and those who cannot speak for themselves. Jesus is Lord of our children, our elders, and all of us in between. Jesus is Lord of every person you disagree with, every lifestyle you cannot understand, and every nation under the sun. Jesus is Lord of every creature in the sea, every insect in the field, every balanced and beautiful ecosystem created by God. Treasure these three words, and complete the sentence yourself. Jesus is Lord—
Peace,
Pastor Chad McKenna
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