Would it surprise you if I told you that Jesus never wanted us to worship him?  

In some circles, that may be quite a shocking thing to say.  After all, we gather every Sunday in Jesus’ name, we pray in Jesus’ name, and Jesus is central to how we worship together.  It has a tinge of blasphemy to say that, as good Christians, we should not worship Jesus.

And yet, consider that after his baptism, Jesus began his public ministry not by proclaiming himself as the Messiah, but by “proclaiming the Kingdom of God.”  In fact, whenever the issue of his being the longed-for Messiah came up—whether because of a healing or a prophecy or some other miracle—Jesus was likely to react by telling people to be quiet about that.  “Don’t tell anyone,” he would often say.  I suspect that the reason he said this was because he wanted to keep the focus where it belonged: on God and God’s realm rather than on himself.

Now, that is not to deny the incarnation; that Jesus was the personification of the divine.  It is rather to say that I suspect it would be quite surprising to Jesus today to find so much focus on his personhood rather than on his message.  

Yes, Jesus proclaimed himself “The Way”, but he is a way that leads to God.  Yes, Jesus proclaimed himself “The Truth”, but it is the truth that God is a constituent part of creation.  Yes, Jesus proclaimed himself “The Life” – life eternal within God’s love.  It all, continually, comes back to God, not Jesus.

Some would go so far as to say that we should not have faith in Jesus but in the God that Jesus proclaimed.  While this makes logical sense because Jesus’ goal was not to form a new religion but to reform his own Jewish tradition, my heart cannot bypass Jesus as a foundational source of faith.

There is a certain faith-tension here.  One way that I’ve found helpful to resolve this is to think of Jesus in two ways: his earthly ministry and his post-resurrection presence.  The late theologian Marcus Borg is most often credited with using the phrase “the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Christ”.  

I like that because it reminds us that Jesus isn’t one-dimensional.  He had an earthly message (which he emphasized more than himself), and he also had an eternal nature.  It is that time-transcending nature that is not only with us still today but certainly lends itself to worship since it is clearly a window into God’s own self.

Think of it this way: Just like John the Baptist pointed away from himself to Jesus, Jesus points away from himself to God.  

I hope you’ll join us for worship on Sundays here at FCC where Jesus leads us to the worship of God. 

See you in church,

–Rev. Dominic