What Happens When Jesus Is No Longer Relevant in the Church?

Dr. Marlon De La Torre ponders what we can learn from the way the early Church spoke about Christ.

George Orwell once said that the “greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity.” This statement's significance is vital if a Catholic educator's responsibility is to convey the truth of Jesus Christ in a clear and cogent manner. It also presents us with a foundational question on the proper scheme of keeping Jesus relevant every time we encounter an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The early Church’s history appears to provide insight into the formation process where the intent was to convey the authentic message of Jesus Christ. Whether this was the primary scheme or merely a component of religious formation, it is probable to assert that the early Church intended to keep Jesus relevant at all costs.

The early Church used distinctive language that conveyed Jesus as the Son of God and affirmed His teachings: the Beatitudes and the sacramental life, and his death on the Cross. These distinctive truths could not operate in isolation from one another and provide a concept of the language used to convey the salvific actions of Jesus Christ. This clear and distinctive credal language gave rise to a zealous growth of the early Church because the message was unequivocally focused on Jesus Christ and the act of faith revolved around the development of an active relationship with Him.

The relevance of Jesus to the Apostles

In his treatise Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus provides us with a very distinctive insight into how Jesus was relevant in the early Church:

By faith, we believe in one God, the almighty Father who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man for our salvation. And we believe in the Holy Spirit who through the prophets foretold God’s plan: the coming of our beloved Jesus Christ, his birth from the Virgin, his passion, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven and his final coming from heaven in the glory of his Father, to recapitulate all things and to raise all men from the dead, so that, by the decree of his invisible Father, he may make a just judgment in all things and so that every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth to Jesus Christ our Lord and our God, our Savior and our King, and every tongue confess him. (St. Irenaeus)

The Early Church understood the importance of keeping the teachings of Jesus Christ relevant because the people of God had firsthand knowledge or received this knowledge through an oral and written tradition of the faith. There was a clear distinctive symphony of faith that proclaimed Jesus Christ crucified because for our ancestors in faith, Jesus was their whole world.

 The irrelevance of Jesus Christ

What made the faith of our forefathers so alive was that the message was clear: Jesus died to save us from our sins with the hope to spend eternal life with God in heaven if we freely choose. However, the developed sentiment we encounter today is a Jesus who, at best, is viewed as a counselor and friend instead of the son of God who came to save us. When Jesus is not identified in relation to the Trinity, then Jesus the Son of God, and man becomes an ideology rather than the Incarnate Word.

The trajectory of this thought process then begins to seep into our religious education environment where Jesus is taught as a concept which bluntly means Jesus is whatever you want Him to be. Now, we begin to develop false allusions to Jesus Christ apart from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. And, at its worst manifestation, Jesus is not the path to eternal happiness; I am.

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Jesus provides us with the clear door of salvation that only He can offer as the Son of God. #catholicmom

A renewed sense of hope

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He provides us with the clear door of salvation that only He can offer as the Son of God. Initiation into the Kingdom of Heaven is confirmed through the waters of Baptism, and our final journey is confirmed through His death.

So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came [before me] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.^* This command I have received from my Father.” (John 10: 7-18)

Copyright 2022 Marlon De La Torre
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