Why Are We Not Infatuated With Jesus?

One

Why are we not Infatuated with Christ?

We are Christians. We name ourselves according to Jesus. We surround our churches and our homes with images of Him. And despite this, we have a hard time finding Christ interesting. 

Jesus can feel cliché, stale, worn-out. We get excited about the Super bowl or March Madness or the Oscars, we get excited about entertainment and entertainers. We get excited about politics and politicians…But we have a hard time being enthusiastic about Christ Himself.

The God-Man, the Universal Mediator, the Alpha and the Omega, the Savior of the World – we don’t get excited about Him! We aren’t passionate about the Lord Himself. We aren’t perpetually astonished or amazed or infatuated by the truth about Jesus.

How can that be? And what can we do about it?

Two

We do not remember the basic facts about Jesus

It’s easy to take Christ for granted, to think we know everything there is to know about Him, to think there’s nothing less to discover or be amazed by. That’s because we have forgotten who and what Christ is, and what He has done.

Who is Jesus? He is God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity.

What is Jesus? He is totally God and totally man. 

What has Jesus done? He has saved the world.

What is He offering you? To share in His divine life, forever. 

So maybe the best thing we can do is to try and remember, in at least a little detail, what all that means.

Three

Third Person of the Trinity, True God and True Man, Savior of the World

So what does it mean to say that Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity?

It means that Jesus is Eternal, the Son of God, the Co-Participation of the Infinite God with the Father and the Spirit. It means that Christ is the Logos, by whom and in whom all things were made.

Jesus, as God, is the source and goal of all things. The beauty and interest creatures possess are just a partial participation in the magnificence and utterly absorbing character of their source. 

What does it mean to say that Jesus is fully God and fully man?

It means that two thousand years ago, the creator of the universe walked along the roads of the earth He had made. Infinite power and beauty beyond all things cast Himself into the universe of small, manageable, bits of being. So that, if anyone asked, “Where is God?” It became possible to say, “Look over there. See that silhouette over on that hill? That’s God. Let’s go talk to Him.” 

What does it mean to say that Jesus is the Savior of the World?

It means that even though all the most powerful and influential in the world probably don’t know you exist and if they did, they probably wouldn’t do much to help you. The God of the universe does know you exist and took on the ability to suffer so that He could be tortured to death, very slowly, with a torture that was both physical and psychological, to make you happy. 

That’s who Jesus is. That’s what He is. And that’s what He has done. And nothing is as intrinsically important, or profound, or fascinating, as He is.

Four

He will show Himself to us one day

Of course, Jesus hides His glory, for now. Sometimes He may give us, for a brief moment, the gift of seeing how enthralling He is, just like He hid His glory during His earthly life, then on the mountain of Tabor He gave His apostles just a glimpse of who and what He is.

And then the Apostles didn’t have to “remember” how important Jesus was. They saw it. And they never wanted to do anything ever again other than look at Him.

So too, one day we are going to stand before Christ in His glory. And we are going to tremble before His power. We are going to collapse under the weight of His love and generosity. And we will want nothing more than to just gaze on His beauty

Five

Ask Him for the grace not to take Him for granted

One day, we won’t have to work to remember who and what Christ is, and what He has done. One day we’ll see it all. We’ll see His Divinity, His Humanity, and even His Eternal Personhood as we enter into His relationship to His Father and His Spirit. We’ll see all He did for us during those thirty-three years on earth and all He’s done for us at the right hand of the Father. We’ll see Christ as He is, and the full magnificence of His works. And we will be captivated forever.

Until then, we can’t forget the most important truths of Jesus, which express and ground all the other truths of our faith. So keep making the effort to stay interested in Jesus. And keep asking Him for the grace to keep Him front and center, as He will be one day, to our everlasting delight.