Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel

The Real Jesus made Luke Timothy Johnson famous as the leading debunker of the historical-Jesus movement. In Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel, Johnson makes a more constructive presentation--a meditative and scriptural explanation of his understanding of the real Jesus. "The most important question concerning Jesus," according to Johnson, is "Do we think he is dead or alive?" The book begins offering its own answer to that question with an enthusiastic essay on the resurrection, which culminates with another question: "How does Jesus now find continuing embodiment as life-giving Spirit? As all-powerful Lord, in any fashion he chooses!" Johnson describes a Jesus who is living all around us, in the canon, creed, sacraments, lives of the saints, and elsewhere. Johnson then provides readings of each gospel, Acts, Paul's epistles, and Revelation to give his arguments scriptural mooring. The Real Jesus rambles a bit--at times, it reads suspiciously like class lecture notes--but it's got a good heart. The book's goal is to wake readers up so they can live in the truth, "so that we might become living texts speaking Jesus in the world--saints from whom others also might learn Jesus." --Michael Joseph Gross