By Julia Qiuye Zhao

When I first came to know Christ, I loved to address him as “Lord Jesus.” It was kind of like calling your doctor, “Dr. Ben,” or your Sunday School teacher, “Ms. Mary,” or your pastor, “Pastor Anna”; combining the title with the first name felt both respectful and intimate.  This can seem odd, but it was part of my particular fascination with coming to know a Lord I had never heard of before and the refuge I found in belonging to him and his people when I felt so out of place as an immigrant child in a new land.

You may not have the same association with this title for Jesus, however. The coming together of lordship and intimacy is particular to our relationship with him. Authority and intimacy are often seen as contradictory but their coming together in Christ is a part of what is radical about Jesus’ coming and the countercultural declaration that Jesus is not only our Lord but also the Lord of the Universe. 

‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.” Jesus said, “ It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant” (Matt 20:25). He admonished his disciples to do this because that is what he himself did. They called him Lord and Teacher, and so he was, but he also knelt before them and washed their feet, something only a servant would do. It’s a radically inversive image of lordship, in their day and ours. 

There is another way in which Jesus’ lordship was, and is, radical. In the Roman world, the Caesars were lords and the Pax Romana was the rule. It promised a kind of peace if you complied and did not threaten their authority, but it was also cruel, authoritarian, and would tolerate no competitors. Herod, the puppet king of Judea under Caesar, did not hesitate to kill children and family members alike when he thought his authority was threatened. Crucifixion, reserved only for non-Roman citizens, was as much about displaying Rome’s power as it was a warning about what happened to those who defied it.

The declaration of Jesus’ lordship was an implicit statement that if Jesus was indeed Lord, then Caesar was not! To worship a God who became a human being, a real human being who ate and slept and sweat and wept, to call a crucified criminal the Lord of the universe — this was the message of the early Christians! This was “the way” embraced by this “called out” people which transformed not only lives, but also relationships, nations, and systems. That this same Lord — whose glory and grace filled the cosmos — also knelt before his disciples and tenderly washed their feet, touched and embraced the bodies of lepers and made them well, took children (not the children of rulers or “the elite” but children of peasants and villages) in his arms and said that the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to them, embodied viscerally how radical this kind of lordship was.

The pursuit of justice is often seen as opposed to a personal relationship with Jesus. The split between Mainline and Evangelical, “conservative” and “progressive” have unfortunately contributed to this dichotomy. However, perhaps the church can embody a different way: a way in which embracing Jesus as Lord is both the most intimate act possible and also the most radical — because the same One in whose image even the greatest person on earth is created, is the same One who was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn. 

Julia Qiuye Zhao was born in China, grew up in Toronto and completed a PhD at the University of Notre Dame before following God’s call into ministry. She completed a MDiv at Princeton Theological Seminary and a certificate in spiritual direction with Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development in May of 2023. She was ordained as a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in January of 2024 and is currently serving as Pastor/Head of Staff at the Presbyterian Church of Clearfield, PA.