This has affected both the subject matter and images that are presented and also the language that is used.
We see and hear things on television today that were out of the question in 1949, when my family got our first 10-inch, black-and-white TV.
I recently experienced one particular part of this trend while I was watching a movie:the casual and even profane use of the name “Jesus.”
We’re accustomed to hearing the name used that way in everyday life, but for a long time no one would have thought to use it that way on television, and that has changed.
I happened to see that movie during the Easter season in the same week in we read in the Acts of the Apostles about the apostles being hauled before the Sanhedrin for resuming their preaching immediately after escaping from jail.
So I noted the way the high priest framed his statement:
“We gave you strict orders to stop preaching in that name.’’
If we read past this passage we learn that the Sanhedrin was so angry over the response — “The God of our ancestors raised Jesus, but you had him killed” — that they wanted to kill the apostles, but a wise member of the court talked them out of it.
And so, St. Luke writes, the Sanhedrin “had them flogged, ordered them to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, and dismissed them.’’
And the text continues: “So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.”
Most of these same men had scattered and gone into hiding when Jesus himself was arrested and executed.
All of these men had refused to believe it when they were told that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
But then they saw for themselves the evidence of the resurrection — they saw Jesus alive.
And because of their faith in the risen Jesus, they were on fire with the determination to spread his name not only throughout Jerusalem but throughout the world.
Eventually, most of them would die for doing exactly what the Sanhedrin tried to stop them from doing in those early days.
They would die rather than stop proclaiming his name.
The Oxford Dictionaries in the entry under the word Jesus, now include this definition: "an oath used to express irritation, dismay, or surprise."
It’s in the dictionary now.
A person scratches off a losing lottery ticket, fails to beat a red light, forgets his glasses at home, hears the latest Dow Jones average, disagrees with an umpire’s call or the latest elimination on “Dancing with the Stars,” and his response is: “Jesus Christ.”
That’s a far cry from what St. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi:
“God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."
Charles Paolino is a member of the RENEW staff and a permanent Deacon in the Diocese of Metuchen.