JESUS IS GOD!!!
I am usually able to resist the urge to scream "JESUS IS GOD" when I hear people say "I believe in God AND Jesus, as if the two were different! I resist the temptation, because I am sure that people say it not in any malice or disrespect, but only because they haven't been taught better - and that is the fault of bishops and priests for not providing better religious education and faith formation - wouldn't it be great if they responded to the crises of faith in Christ and the Eucharist with the same effort that they had in responding to the coronavirus crisis.... wouldn't it be great?
But this crisis is nothing new. It was actually a huge controversy in the early church called Arianism. Arius, a priest, taught that Jesus was a great guy, a wonderful teacher, holy and even sent by God ... but NOT GOD! Many people were actually led astray by Arian and his false teaching about Jesus Christ. It was truly a crisis that divided the Church.
The Ecumenical Councils of Nicea and Constantinople were convened to deal with this crisis and ultimately Arianism was defeated. (Read more about that HERE. Do some good research on the topic and don't get your info from movies like, "The Da Vinci Code").
The reason I bring this topic up is because this morning I read an article in Newsweek that reported a recent survey revealed that 52% of Americans are basically Arians (read article HERE). 52% of Americans do not believe that Jesus is actually God. Again they believe that he was a great teacher/prophet, but not really God. Clearly, we still have a Christological controversy to fight.
But it struck me more profoundly as I was preparing for morning Mass. In the Gospel for today (Tuesday, September 1, 2020), Luke 4:31-37 we hear of people being amazed by Jesus and His teaching and wonder who He is. Found in the same passage is Jesus encountering a demon who knows exactly who He is. He says, I know who you are, Jesus of Nazareth - the Holy One of God.
How is it that a demon can clearly recognize who Jesus really is, but so many good people, church going people, can not? It is a real problem! It is a real crisis. If Jesus of Nazareth is not really God, can we really be saved from our sins? Can we believe anything that He said or did. C.S. Lewis put it so well, Jesus is either "Lord, Lunatic or Liar" He has to be one of the three.
Lewis said that “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else He would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse."
We have a lot of work to do as a Church to once again clearly teach that Jesus of Nazareth is in fact God, as we profess each Sunday when we say, "Consubstantial with the Father" (of the same divine substance as the Father.
I will continue to try to resist the urge to shout "JESUS IS GOD" when I hear people say "God and Jesus" but I will also try to continue to help people see what the demons so clearly saw, that JESUS IS GOD!