Jesus is Lord
One of the more intimidating questions a person seeking ordination has to answer is about the historic proclamation that Jesus is Lord.
And yet, the longer I have lived with that question, the less it feels like a vocabulary test and the more it feels like an examination of my whole life.
Because saying Jesus is Lord is not the same thing as saying Jesus is meaningful to me. It is not the same thing as saying Jesus is inspiring. It is not the same thing as saying Jesus is part of my family story or my Sunday rhythm.
To say Jesus is Lord is to say that Jesus has a claim on me: on my body, my choices, my speech, my money, my loyalties, my habits, and the way I react when I am tired and someone has managed to find the exact last nerve I had available.
This is the vow before us in this third week of our series about loving boldly. In baptism, and in every reaffirmation of baptism, the church asks:
Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,
put your whole trust in his grace,
and promise to serve him as your Lord,
in union with the Church which Christ has opened
to people of all ages, nations, and races?
That question begins with grace. Before we are asked to serve, before we are asked to change, before we are asked to lay anything aside or take anything up, we are asked to trust that we are loved and loveable. We do not become new in order to earn God's love. We become new because God's love has already taken hold of us.
That is the movement of Ephesians. For the first part of the letter, the writer reminds the community of what God has already done. God has chosen. God has adopted. God has broken down dividing walls. God has rooted them and grounded them in love. And then, at chapter 4, the letter turns and says, essentially: therefore - live like it.
Therefore, walk differently. Speak differently. Treat one another differently. Do not keep wearing the old clothes when Christ has given you a new life.
The text says, "You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self," and "to clothe yourselves with the new self." But just before that, there is a phrase I do not want us to miss. The writer says, "That is not the way you learned Christ." Not simply, "that is not what you learned about Jesus," as if the point were only to memorize the right facts. "That is not the way you learned Christ."
So let's pause there, because we use the words Jesus and Christ together so often that we can forget they are doing different kinds of work.
Jesus is the name of a first-century Jewish man from Nazareth. Jesus had a mother who noticed when the wine ran out at a wedding. Jesus had feet that got dusty, a body that got tired, friends who disappointed him, meals he shared, tears he wept, and wounds that were real. Jesus is the Word made flesh, the embodied presence of God moving through actual roads and villages and human relationships.
Christ is not Jesus' last name.
Christ means anointed one. It is the Greek way of speaking about Messiah - the one through whom God's saving purpose is revealed. When we say Jesus Christ, we are making a confession. We are saying that this Jesus - the one who sits at wells with Samaritan women, calls underqualified disciples, feeds the hungry, challenges the powerful, takes up a cross, and lives beyond death - this Jesus is the Christ. This Jesus is the one in whom we see God's heart, God's reign, God's repair of the world, God's life stronger than death.
So to "learn Christ" is not merely to admire Jesus from a safe distance. It is to be drawn into the life of Jesus until his pattern becomes our pattern. It is to let the anointed One reorder our loves. It is to let the crucified and risen Christ become the center of gravity around which everything else begins to move.
That is why this baptismal vow matters so much. We do not confess a generic spirituality. We do not promise allegiance to a vague idea of niceness. We do not serve a mascot for our favorite opinions. We confess Jesus Christ as Savior and promise to serve him as Lord.
And if Jesus Christ is Lord, then every other lord has to be questioned: fear, comfort, ego, nation, party, tribe, money, resentment, and the need to be right.
Ephesians says: those clothes no longer fit.
Ephesians says there are ways of living that no longer fit the life we have been given in Christ. Falsehood no longer fits. Bitterness no longer fits. Slander no longer fits. Words that tear people down no longer fit. Anger that becomes cruelty no longer fits. A life organized around our own fear, power, appetite, or need to be right no longer fits the new self.
So put it away. Not because God is disgusted with you. Not because the church needs another way to make people feel guilty. Put it away because it is not who you are anymore.
In baptism, we often use the language of being clothed in Christ. We may imagine baptism as washing away sin and being dressed in a white robe. That is a beautiful image, but I want to say it this way: in baptism, we receive our truest identity.
We do not stop being who we are. Our race, gender, family stories, national histories, neighborhoods, languages, and names do not vanish in the water. Those things shape us. Some are gifts. Some carry wounds. Some carry responsibility.
But they are not ultimate.
In baptism, our primary identity becomes follower of Jesus. Beloved child of God. Member of Christ's body. One who is learning to live under the mercy and authority of the crucified and risen Lord. And that means every other identity has to answer to Jesus Christ.
Our politics have to answer to Jesus Christ. Our economic choices have to answer to Jesus Christ. Our resentments have to answer to Jesus Christ. Our assumptions about who belongs and who does not belong have to answer to Jesus Christ.
The good news is that Jesus does not wait for perfect understanding before meeting us. Christ does not call us into transformation and then leave us alone. The new self is not a costume we manufacture by willpower. It is a life we receive, and then practice again.
Unity, not uniformity. Accountability, not control. Truth, not cruelty. Forgiveness, not amnesia. Tenderheartedness, not sentimentality. Love, not avoidance.
We know what it is to hear one phrase, one affiliation, one news source, one theological word, and decide we know everything we need to know about someone. We know what it is to want Jesus to bless the identities and loyalties we already prefer rather than transform them.
And let us be plain: Jesus has been appropriated in our time to authorize all kinds of power that do not look much like Jesus. The name of Jesus gets attached to domination, exclusion, nationalism, cruelty, and the preservation of privilege. But the Lord we meet in Jesus Christ is not a mascot for any human empire.
So if the "Jesus" we are following never asks anything of our pride, never interrupts our comfort, never challenges our contempt, never expands our compassion, never sends us toward people we would rather avoid, then we should ask whether we are following Jesus Christ or simply decorating our own preferences with his name.
That is where Ephesians becomes so practical that it almost hurts.
Put away falsehood. Speak the truth to your neighbors. Be angry, but do not sin. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
Put away bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
And I do not say that as someone who has mastered it. I say it as someone who has to monitor this in my own life. I have to remind myself that I am not my own master. The call on my life is not finally about my will. That is hard and repetitive work. It takes scripture. It takes prayer. It takes accountability with people who love me enough to ask whether I am actually living what I say I believe.
Because professing Jesus as Lord is not a one-time statement. It is a daily reordering.
It is waking up and asking:
Who gets to set the agenda for my life today?
What old garment am I still wearing because it is familiar?
Where do my words need to give grace?
Where has my anger become sin?
Where has my comfort become a false lord?
Whom has Christ opened the church to that I am still trying to hold at a distance?
That last question matters deeply. The baptismal vow says Christ has opened the church to people of all ages, nations, and races. Not Christ might open the church if we are ready. Not Christ will open the church once people become easy for us to understand. Christ has opened the church.
So the work before us is not to decide whether the doors should be open. Christ has already done that. The work before us is to ask what old clothes we need to take off so that we stop standing in the doorway.
What contempt needs to come off? What fear needs to come off? What superiority needs to come off? What prejudice needs to come off? What need for control needs to come off?
And then: what does Christ invite us to put on?
Truth. Kindness. Tenderheartedness. Forgiveness. Grace-shaped speech. A love bold enough to be accountable. A love bold enough to tell the truth. A love bold enough to change. A love bold enough to make room.
This is where justice enters the life of discipleship. Not as a political slogan. Not as something extra for people who like committees and marches. Biblical justice is about the whole of life being ordered in the way God calls it to be - not the way economies demand, not the way human kingdoms demand, not the way fear demands, but the way of God, where all God's beloved children can thrive.
If Jesus Christ is Lord, then justice is not optional decoration on our faith. It is one of the ways our faith becomes visible. It is one of the ways we show that we have learned Christ.
And that can feel overwhelming when we imagine justice only as huge movements and sweeping change. But what if serving Jesus as Lord begins with asking, every morning: What can I do today to help order my small corner of the world toward God's love? How do my decisions and actions make it possible for someone else to thrive?
Not every act will change a whole system. Some will be drops. But drops matter. A word that gives grace, a meal shared, a prejudice confessed, a budget aligned with compassion, a lonely person seen - each one is a drop in the stream of God's justice.
And enough drops, beloved, begin to look like water rolling down the mountain.
This week, I want to invite you to do something concrete. Not dramatic. Not performative. Concrete.
At some point today, or tomorrow morning, write this sentence down:
If Jesus Christ is Lord of my life, this week I will...
And finish the sentence honestly.
Not generally. Not "I will be a better person." Not "I will try to love people more." Those are fine aspirations, but they are too easy to wiggle out of.
Make it specific.
If Jesus Christ is Lord of my life, this week I will apologize to the person I dismissed.
If Jesus Christ is Lord of my life, this week I will tell the truth in a conversation I have been avoiding.
If Jesus Christ is Lord of my life, this week I will practice silence before I speak.
If Jesus Christ is Lord of my life, this week I will move my body, my time, my money, or my attention toward mercy.
And then tell one person. Not for applause. For accountability.
Because we do not live this vow alone. We serve Jesus as Lord in union with the church. Faith is not a solo project. Nothing about following Jesus is a solo project. We are clothed in Christ together. We are learning, together, how to live as if grace is true and love is strong enough to change us.
But I do trust this: the One who claims us is faithful. The One who calls us beloved also calls us forward. The One who opens the church to all God's children also opens our hearts wider than we would open them on our own. The One who tells us to put away the old self also gives us something new to wear.
So, beloveds, let us not only say that Jesus is Lord.
Let us live like it.
Let us take off what no longer fits. Let us put on the life Christ gives. Let us speak words that give grace. Let us become kind, tenderhearted, forgiving people. Let us add our drops to the rolling waters of God's justice. Let us love boldly, not as an idea, but as a way of walking through the world.
May it be so.
Amen.
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