In following up from my message last weekend (Together We Must Know / download), I wanted to post a few more thoughts to encourage my own thinking as well as yours. First, a recap. I see the ancient proclamation/confession "Jesus Christ is Lord" (2 Corinthians 4:5) as central to all that we're doing at CRCC.

• We hold to the belief that there was a historical figure, Jesus, who walked the earth and preached and lived the good news of the Kingdom of God (see, for example, Matthew 4:23 in addition to the Luke passage I touched on in the message). As followers, we share his mission in this, seeking to be the healing hands and voices of our generation in our our church community, our city, and our world.
• But it doesn't just end there, for we also believe that this Jesus rightly has the role of Christ (or Messiah: "Annointed One") who died for our sins. As referenced in my message, one of the oldest confessional formulations in the New Testament comes from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and focuses upon two assertions of faith: that Christ died for our sins and that he was resurrected.
• But it doesn't end there, either, for this Jesus, who walked the earth, and this Christ who died and rose again, is proclaimed as Lord - he lives today and always and we give our lives in trust to him and in action like him. We trust his sacrifice on our behalf as Christ, we trust his leadership in our lives as Lord, and in this trust we act, moving like Jesus in our journey as individuals and as a congregation.

This leads me to my second reflection. I am more convinced now than ever that we must uphold both Jesus and Christ as Lord. By this I mean we must be the gospel and preach the gospel of God's dream for the world as a whole in the here and now. We must work to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free. We must work to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and educated the immigrant. But we must also, and simultaneously, be true to our call to preach the gospel of God's dream for individuals, that they might find forgiveness and hope and eternal, abundant life in Christ. Of course we will get enamored and distracted from time to time by one or the other of these "gospel poles" but we must, as much as possible, always return to the center and do both with excellence. Furthermore, I must lead in this and equip the church to become this...quite frankly, this is one of the reasons for this blog. Third, I realize that in talking of the essential, or core, confession of the Church - and our church - I could have gone with many options. I could have chosen the proclamation "Jesus is Son of Man" (one of Jesus' favorites; e.g., Mark 10:45; Mark 13:26) or the "Jesus is Messiah/Christ" of the earliest Jewish followers (Acts 3:18-20) or even "Jesus is Son of God" which was Paul's proclamation in Damascus after his conversion (Acts 9:20). However, I went with "Jesus Christ is Lord" because it seems to tie together all of these confessional claims and was embedded in a text that challenges me as a pastor (2 Corinthians 4:5). I'll finish up with a quote I found in my background research for this message. It is from theologian James Dunn (UDNT, pp. 56-57) and his study of the early confessional formulae of the Church. To him (and to me), it seems that the unifying strand of belief in the early church was

...the conviction that the historical figure, Jesus the Jew, is now an exalted being - that this Jesus is and continues to be the agent of God, supreme over all other claimants and titles, Lord and Son of God... First, it is Jesus who is confessed - not his ideas, faith or teaching in itself. It is not the faith of Jesus which here comes to expression, but faith in Jesus... Second, it is the present status of Jesus which is confessed - not what he was, but what he is. This is most obvious in the case of the kyrios ("Lord") confession... Third...Jesus is the subject of the confession; it is the historical person who is so confessed. In other words, each confession itself maintains the vital link between the historical person and the one who is the present author of life, justification, power. Jesus, the Jesus who was, is, now is and continues to be Christ, Son of God, Lord... [the] unifying element within earliest Christianity...is the unity between the earthly Jesus and the exalted one who is somehow involved in or part of our encounter with God in the here and now.

Okay, enough of me. Because I framed my message last weekend as a kitchen table talk (and would love for this entry to be seen as such as well), feel free to comment and push back on anything at any time!