Scary Jesus

During the COVID lockdowns, I was forced like most Catholics to resort to streaming Mass online. Although I watched Masses from practically all over the world during the lockdowns, I most often watched Mass from the Crypt Chapel of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. It wasn’t that I necessarily desired to watch Mass from our nation’s capital, but rather the fact that the Basilica had a prerecorded Mass that I could watch on Sunday morning. Although many churches now prerecord the Sunday Mass, the National Basilica was one of the first places to do this and make it available before Sunday. This mattered to me because of the time difference between the US and Kenya, which is eight hours ahead of US EST. I’ve always gone to Mass in the morning – almost exclusively early morning (8 AM or earlier). In fact, although it may have happened, I can’ think of single time when I attended a Sunday evening Mass, with the exception of when I was in college. My development into a morning person had not yet been fully realized. The prerecorded Masses from the Basilica allowed me to watch the Sunday Mass in the early morning (Kenya time) during the lockdowns.

The National Basilica is purported to be the largest Catholic Church in North America. Some sites claim in to be the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Although the Sunday Mass is live streamed from the magnificent main church, the prerecorded Mass that I watched is celebrated in the Crypt Chapel, which is also very beautiful and located on the lower level of the Basilica.

Located prominently above the sanctuary of the main church of the Basilica is a huge mosaic named “Christ in Majesty”. It is not a depiction of Christ that we are normally used to and is often referred to as “Scary Jesus” due to our Lord’s rather stern disposition in the mosaic rendering.  Although as I’ve mentioned, the prerecorded Mass is celebrated in the lower Crypt Church, pictures of “Scary Jesus” are often shown in the prerecorded Mass as the video incorporates shots from other locations within the basilica.

Seeing that representation of Jesus on Sundays really got me thinking. In today’s culture, many people prefer to think of Jesus as a cross between a hippie flower child and a Marxist. Although I profess and believe with every fiber of my being that Jesus is all-loving and merciful, I also know that He is our creator, redeemer and our judge.  Jesus humbled Himself to become one of us, to be born in a stable, to subject Himself to extreme persecution and punishment and to eventually to die an ignominious death on a cross, having been abandoned by almost all his closest friends. But Jesus is also God, who is eternal and all-powerful, the one who created everything there is out of nothing. While Jesus exhibits His power through humility and self-sacrifice, He is still our all-powerful God.

Fear of the Lord is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is also talked about extensively in scripture. Today, we don’t like to think or refer to God in this way even though fear of the Lord has nothing to do with God wanting us to be afraid of Him. We are His beloved children. Rather, fear of the Lord means that God should be the most important thing in your life and that everything in your life should flow from and be subordinate to your love of God. What I believe is also often missing in our current age is a sense of awe of God – a reverence for His power and majesty. This is what I believe is meant by fear of the Lord. I think this is why the “Scary Jesus” mosaic appeals to me so much.

With the current priority given to science and social justice issues, it is not surprising that fear of the Lord has taken a back seat. Today’s culture looks to government and human efforts to fix all the world’s problems and fulfill all our needs. Neither science nor justice nor government is antithetical to God, but they are not God. I have engineering and physics degrees and have been immersed in science and technology my whole life. Science enables us to understand the world in which we live. Science gives us glimpses into the “mind” of God, who created all there is But I fully understand science is not God. I believe that we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the creation which God has entrusted to us, but again, this creation is not God.

When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus tell us that we should love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. I love this passage not only for the fact that in it Jesus tells us how to properly order our lives, but that this is based on the Jewish Shema prayer that Jesus would have prayed daily as an observant Jew. “Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) What could be better that praying what Jesus prayed. Jesus then proceeds to state that the second commandment is like the first, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. We cannot truly love God if we don’t love others, but in this passage, Jesus teaches that our love of others can only flow from our love of God. Love of God precedes love of neighbor. In fact, we know that Jesus took this teaching even further and taught that we must also love our enemies. I think it is easier for us to wrap our minds around the fact that love of God precedes love of enemy (although loving our enemy is itself not easy to wrap our heads around!), but love of neighbor and love of enemy are really one and the same.

Jesus goes so far as to say that “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” While that seems rather harsh, Jesus is again calling us to love God and then to love everything else for the sake of God. Our love for even our own family can only truly flow from our love of God. Jesus us compels us to put Him first in our lives and to find meaning for everything else in our lives, including our love of others, in relation to our love for Him. St. Augustine put it this way. “Anyone who does not love Him Who made man has not learned to love man aright.” God does not compete for our love. God is love itself and sustains us in being out of love. True love can only flow from God, who is love. Remember Jesus’s words: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father.”

One of the Mysteries of the Rosary that never felt quite satisfying to me is the Finding of Jesus in the temple. When Jesus was twelve years old, Mary and Joseph traveled with Jesus to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, which they did every year. Upon departing, Mary and Joseph thought that Jesus was in caravan of family and friends returning home, but he had actually remained behind in Jerusalem. When after traveling a day, they discovered Jesus was missing, Mary and Joseph frantically searched for Jesus and when not finding him in the caravan, returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days, they found Jesus in the temple, listening to and asking questions of the teachers. Mary, understandably upset, says to Jesus “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Jesus responds in a manner that Mary and Joseph did not understand, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

For most of my life, I simply looked at the finding of Jesus in the temple as a joyful mystery because of Mary and Joseph’s joy at finding Jesus, which is certainly true. But like every word of God, there are layers and layers that we can spend our lifetime unpacking. I now see the joy in this mystery as having more to do with Jesus teaching us (like in the Beatitudes) how to rightly order our lives to live joyfully. Jesus is telling us that we can only live joyful lives when we align our lives with God’s creative intention for us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven (an oldie but goodie from the Baltimore catechism).

God is good.