“Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then He said to
Thomas, ‘Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe. Thomas
answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:26)
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Christian churches had distributed bracelets to their children with the letters on them: WWJD. In each situation they found themselves they were encouraged to ponder the acronym: What would Jesus do? What’s wrong with that? Perspective! It turns prayer into simple reflection. It makes Jesus a memory rather than a living presence. The God-man, the only-begotten Son of God, becomes in the lyrics of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” He’s a man; He’s just a man. It gets worse.
An advertising guru decided to use the phrase to sell automobiles. He asked the public: What car would Jesus drive? Mini-size hybrid or electric Prius to save fuel? Or perhaps a pick-up truck to carry His carpenter’s tools. To carry the folly further, what would Jesus eat today? In Florida to honor Passover, Jesus was called “Prince of peas.” A rabbi insisted that He would eat lamb at least on Passover. Or was He a vegetarian, like our monastics?
It’s one thing for non-Christians to ridicule our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, even though it offends at least some of us. We respect mere mortals like Muhammad and Buddha as religious leaders. But many Christians who deny the divinity of Christ, even though we feel them to be in some ways affiliated with us, having been baptized in Christ, are in fact heretics, whether they realize it or not. They are in the same category as the ancient heretic Arius of Alexandria who wreaked havoc in the fourth century by dividing Christianity. The point of reciting the Nicene Creed before we consecrate the Holy Eucharist and partake of Christ’s Body and Blood is to affirm the truth that He is “true God of true God, of one essence with the Father.” All that the Father and the Holy Spirit are, Jesus Christ the Son of God is equally.
To ask what would Jesus do is not much different from asking what my mother would do, or what she would have me do in a crisis. Substitute any name—an apostle, prophet, or a role model. They work equally as well. But Jesus Christ is not just in our minds and memories, He lives in our hearts—or ought to. St. Paul puts us to the test: “Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? (II Corinthians 13:5). Here is truly something significant to ponder: Jesus Christ is in you. Not just in your mind or your memory, not ahead or above you, or beside you—He is in you. As God He can be anywhere in creation, and He chooses to be in you. When you can really pray “Thy will be done,” and it is not just a phrase; when you have first taken charge of your life so completely that nobody owns or manipulates your will, and then when you are free to offer it to God, your will can be His will, in order that His will be your will. That takes more than just wishful thinking. It takes at least one lifetime to achieve.
St. Paul never stopped preaching about the life that he lived in Christ. And he used that phrase so often: in Christ. Here again, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:19).
And St. Paul explained what he wants for us also. He wrote: My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). He is saying that our baptism is not complete until Christ lives within us, and we go through this world with the seed of God growing inside of our hearts that will one day blossom into a fragrant soul in God’s Kingdom.