When the first Christians felt their hearts full to overflowing and they cried out with joy, “Jesus is Lord,” they certainly meant no harm.
But they found themselves causing endless offence. Their fellow Jews were scandalised. “There is only one Lord,” they said, “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
To attribute the holy name to any other – especially to a mere man – was blasphemy.
The Roman overlords were not as pious as the scribes and pharisees of Judea but they were not best pleased either. They declared: “Caesar alone is Lord.”
Their concern was for political control and they would tolerate no defiance, certainly not from some disloyal rabble.
What happened, that first Easter, that made those first Christians so determined? They would be shunned by family and friends who called them idolaters.
Their civic rulers persecuted them and made examples of them with grisly forms of execution; men women and children.
But, something changed that first Easter; the Christians wanted to love everybody – even their enemies – but they would never, ever, stop saying, out loud: “Jesus is Lord!”
Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ,
Bishop of Down and Connor
