Andrew Conard asked an interesting question over at Thoughts of Resurrection a couple days ago.  He heard someone ask, “Who is Jesus to you?”  So, he wrote,

Jesus is my Lord and Savior. He continues to teach me about what it is like to live as one of his followers in a kingdom that is not of this world, but is coming into the world.

He then got an interesting response from someone who attends the church he serves,

I think this is very similar to what most mainline Christians (including myself) and especially those who grew up in “the church” would declare. However, I would throw out these questions:

1. What is a “Lord” in modern terms and vernacular? We don’t have Lords anymore.
2. What is he a “Savior” from? A big ravine? Democrats? Republicans? Stupid people?

So in short, perhaps this needs to be modernized. So we say that he is our CEO and saves use from our sinful wrong lived lives???? Just at thought.

Man, there are a ton of questions here that have been kicked around quite a bit in recent years.  After the “seeker sensitive” movement, some have suggested that it’s more important to keep the Scriptural language and simply train people in that new vocabulary.  Others have suggested that “relevance” dictates the need to modernize the language we use.

I would simply want to offer the reminder that relevance is relative.  The word CEO, for people immersed in the language and world of business, makes a lot of sense.  CEO, for someone in a remote tribe, probably would be meaningless.  If that tribe had a chief, then perhaps Jesus as Chief would make more sense than Lord.

In addition to this question, we might also ask ourselves whether or not the individualistic language of, “Who is Jesus to you?” might preclude answers that include Jesus’ relationship to the Church.  Then again, one could argue that we might just be who we are only in relationship to the numerous socially interconnected ties that we hold.  In other words, maybe our individual subjectivity is more communal than individualistic thinking sometimes like to believe!

In any case, I agree that Jesus is Lord and Savior.  I also believe that Jesus is the incarnation of God and the crux of the overarching story of the world: creation, fall, and redemption.  I also believe Jesus is the Son of God who is always in a mutually self-giving and loving relationship with the Father and the Spirit.