Column: Are you a Christ follower? is an existential question that assumes an existential answer

With Easter fast approaching it’s the most poignant — not to mention contentious — question a person can ask of another in this age of political correctness.

The question? “Are you a Christ follower?”

How many out there have just now experienced an involuntary tightening of the jaw muscles or a rolling of the eyes? Some, doubtless, have hackles rising on their backsides.

The question elicits varied responses. Intentional or not, we each place Christ in a box.

So, my question hangs in the ether. Who is Jesus of Nazareth and in what category have you placed him?

It’s an existential question that assumes an existential answer. No glib rejoinders or reflexive disparagements.

British intellectual and writer Malcolm Muggeridge, who came to faith late in life, expressed his answer succinctly: “Jesus was God or he was nothing.”

Fellow U.K. scholar and former atheist, C.S. Lewis, put it slightly differently: “Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

Clearly, Jesus and the resurrection stand at the center of the Christian faith. Absent the resurrection, Christianity is a Mary Kay convention.

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins,” the Apostle Paul warns. Without the resurrection, Christians “are of all people most to be pitied.”

I remember Easter 1951, when I was 6 and my brother 4. We lived with our parents in a small Balboa Island apartment behind my grandparents’ house. We attended the tiny Community Methodist Church on Agate Avenue, adjacent to the Balboa Ferry.

My brother and I wore new suits purchased at Vandermast Clothiers in Santa Ana. We walked tall, bedecked in our white shirts and ties. It was clear to us that Easter was something special.

Then there was Easter 1964. It fell on March 29, and I was a 19-year-old Army basic trainee at Fort Ord. Talk about your lonely soldier.

I awoke early to read passages of the Easter story from my pocket New Testament presented me by The Gideons at my induction. Because it was Easter, we had the day off but were restricted to the “company area.” No passes.

More than 200 out of my company of 300 elected to attend a Protestant worship service or Catholic Mass that Sunday morning. We marched in our class-A uniforms two miles from our training area to “lower post,” adjacent to Pacific Coast Highway, where the main gate and chapel were located.

I’ll be perfectly candid. It wasn’t that we G.I.s were super-spiritual that Easter morning. Most of us — myself included — attended chapel because soldiers who stayed in the barracks on Easter Sunday were likely to be pinched for a clean-up detail.

That’s not the ideal reason for celebrating the Lord’s resurrection, but God can use our worst for his best.

In the 1980s and ’90s my wife, Hedy, and I often arose early to attend Calvary Chapel’s Easter sunrise services with 10,000 other folks at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa. We left home at 5 a.m. with two sleepy girls in the back seat and a Thermos of hot coffee. We loved the sunrise message of hope and new life.

One Easter, while on the road, Hedy and I attended a worship service near Monticello, Va. I donned slacks, a sweater and deck shoes, and we braved a soft rain, walking several blocks from our hotel to a large Baptist church.

We entered the sanctuary and realized everyone was dressed to the 9s: men in suits, ties and highly polished shoes; women in dresses, heels and flamboyant hats. This wasn’t “Cali Casual.” We felt grossly underdressed and looked for the nearest exit, but the Virginians would have none of it. We were caught up in the crowd entering the sanctuary.

When it came time to greet people around us, folks warmly embraced us. Their welcome made us feel at home in a crowd where we knew not a single soul. But, clearly, we were known.

Those people greeted us in his name. For them, the resurrection was real and they repeated with conviction that ancient Christian antiphon:

“He is risen.”

“He is risen, indeed.”

It makes all the difference.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.