The Name Jesus
February 6, 2025
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were close friends, both with brilliant minds and the ability to make seemingly complicated theology very simple. Lewis famously observed, “Jesus is either who he said he is, or he is a liar or a lunatic. He did not leave us any other options. He did not intend to.” 1
When I came upon this statement while reading Mere Christianity in June of 1995, the Light came on, and my life changed forever. I did not understand it at the time, but that day I was born again. I remember thinking, with sudden and total clarity, “It is true! Jesus did walk on this earth, and he was God incarnate. He is the Son of God, and I must change everything about my life and pursue him with everything I have.”
J.R.R. Tolkien reasoned, as he was seeking to convince Lewis to take Christianity seriously, “Jesus is either of ultimate importance, or it he is not important at all. But one thing he is never, and can never be, is kind of important.”
Is he right?
Today let’s ask these questions:
Who is Jesus?
If he is who he said he is, then where should my focus be?
Have you ever sat still, blocked out all the distractions, and pondered who Jesus actually is? Not the church or Sunday School version, but the real man … the real … God. Before 1995, I never had, despite having been in church all my life, memorizing both catechisms and all that. But when I did, and the Light came on, there was a “plate tectonics shift” in my life.
You see, if Jesus is who he said he is, then this question to his followers is piercing, troubling, and hopefully convicting to us:
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)
Your answer? Is it any of these?
“Well, Jesus, you’re just … kind of … important to me. I have many other things competing for that top spot.”
“I’m just lazy.”
“I believe in Jesus, but obviously not what Jesus believed.” (John Ortberg)
Or perhaps what many will have to say on that fateful day, standing before Jesus:
“I didn’t realize it back then, Jesus, Son of God, but I guess I did not really care. Looking back, you just were not that important to me.”
Oh my.
Jesus deserves your all, your very best, your total commitment, your complete focus.
Yes, he understands you have a life full of spinning plates, and yet he calls you to,
“ … seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)
Seek him first. In the morning. In your walking around day-to-day details. Before you close your eyes at night.
Grace is getting what you do not deserve. I certainly do not deserve Jesus. But Jesus absolutely deserves all of me.
Does he you?
If you want to read Lewis’ actual words that changed my life:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.
That is the one thing we must not say. 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 the 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. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”— C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity
Sources:
