Are We Missing the Messiah?

by Kyle Idleman and Mark E. Moore

Ask most people what Christ means, and they’ll probably tell you it’s Jesus’ last name. As if Jesus had been born to Mary and Joseph Christ in Bethlehem and eventually started the religion that bears his family name. But Christ isn’t a last name; it’s a Greek title that means “Anointed One,” or “Messiah” in Hebrew. Somewhere between the first century and today, we’ve forgotten what that title actually means.

When the first followers of Jesus called him Christ or Messiah, they were not giving him a surname; they were making an explosive political, theological, and revolutionary claim. They were saying that this carpenter from Nazareth was the promised King that Israel had been waiting for. The one who would establish God’s Kingdom. The one who would challenge every earthly power. The one who deserves total allegiance.

In the first century, it was dangerous to call Jesus “the Christ.” It was the kind of thing that got you killed. People didn’t casually throw that title around. If you said someone was the Messiah, you were saying he was the rightful King, which meant Caesar wasn’t. You were saying his Kingdom was ultimate, which meant Rome wasn’t. You were pledging your allegiance to him above all other authorities.

That’s what Christ meant.

But somewhere between the first century and the twenty-first, we’ve lost that meaning. We’ve turned a transformative title into a comfortable logo. We’ve turned the cross into jewelry or a trendy tattoo. We’ve domesticated a revolutionary claim into a religious label. And in the process, to some degree, we have lost the Messiah himself.

We’ve created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our individual needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. We’ve made him into a spiritual life coach, a divine therapist, a cosmic vending machine who dispenses blessings when we pray the right prayers and live relatively decent lives.

That Jesus is safe. Manageable. Polite. Convenient. Eager to serve and save.

He validates our choices. He baptizes our politics. He asks very little of us beyond that we show up at church occasionally and are generally nice people. He fits comfortably into our lives without disrupting them too much. On Sunday mornings, we want just enough guilt to make us feel like we’ve been to church but not so much as to interfere with Saturday nights.

But here’s the problem: That Jesus, the one we’ve made in our own image, would be unrecognizable to the people who followed him in the first century.

They didn’t have a personal life coach. They had a King who demanded absolute allegiance.

They didn’t have a spiritual therapist. They had a Messiah who told them to take up a cross and follow him, even to death. They didn’t have a divine assistant who existed to improve their lives. They had a revolutionary who promised to turn the world upside down and who expected them to execute his mission—and, in some cases, be executed for the mission.

Same name. Completely different person.

We’ve inherited the name. We’ve claimed the brand. We may have even made him a nostalgic hero. But somewhere along the way, we missed the story. We’ve lost what it truly means to call Jesus “the Messiah.” We’ve lost the dangerous, demanding, glorious reality of who he is and what he came to do.

We didn’t lose Jesus because he went somewhere. We lost him because we stopped looking for him. We settled for a smaller story, a safer Savior, a more convenient Christ.

But he’s been there all along, waiting. Waiting for us to stop being satisfied with the logo and start seeking the living legend. Waiting for us to trade in our hand-me-down understanding of who he is for the real thing.

The Messiah isn’t missing.

We have been missing him.

(Adapted from The Missing Messiah: The Jesus We Can No Longer Ignore by Kyle Idleman and Mark E. Moore, released March 3, 2026 from Tyndale House Publishers.)

Kyle Idleman is a bestselling author and the senior pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the largest churches in America. Kyle is the author of Not a Fan, One at a Time, The End of Me, Gods at War, Grace Is Greater, and Don't Give Up. Kyle's favorite thing to do is hang out with the love of his life, DesiRae. They have four children: MacKenzie, Morgan, Macy, and Kael.

Mark E. Moore is the bestselling author of Core 52 and the teaching pastor at Christ's Church of the Valley in Peoria, Arizona, one of the fastest growing and most dynamic churches in America. He previously spent two decades as a New Testament professor at Ozark Christian College. His life's passion is to make Scripture accessible and relevant to people trying to make sense of Christianity.