RBWords - Volume 20 - Number 4: April 2007
Something to Think About
r.b.words
volume 20
number 4
april 2007
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT - In the period after the celebration of Easter, the daily scriptures have presented us with descriptions, from the Acts of the Apostles, of the early preaching and community life of the first Christians. The daily scriptures have also featured passages from the Gospel of John which focus on the identity of Jesus – the bread of life, the good shepherd, etc. These latter images are attributed to Jesus himself. What challenges me as a preacher is the contrast between what is said in the sermons in Acts and the sermons in John. Are they talking about the same person? Yes, they are, but it is clear that the Gospel of John represents a reflection that is much more abstract and developed than the one in the Acts of the Apostles. In fact, one could say about the whole New Testament that it is a mosaic of images or portraits of Jesus. St. Paul’s image is not St. Matthew’s and St. John’s image is not St. Luke’s, etc. After one reads through the whole of the New Testament (and perhaps much of the Old Testament too because the New Testament’s image is frequently based on reading what the early Christians knew of the Old Testament) one almost wants to ask: “Will the real Jesus Christ please stand up!”
History teaches us that the identity of Jesus was a matter of some dispute well into the 5th century. Some of these disputes were quite violent. St. Athanasius was kicked out of his diocese by Arian rioters three times. It was all over the question of whether Jesus was simply God in a human suit or was he both truly human and truly divine. There were a number of variations on all of this, and some of them are still with us today. Islam recognizes Jesus as one of the great prophets but denies that he is divine. Versions of the Arian heresy acknowledge his divinity but consider it a kind of derivative thing. There are a lot of ISMS to memorize when one studies Christology in the seminary.
The fundamental statement of Jesus’ identity for the Catholic Church is found in the Nicene Creed which we recite every Sunday. After that statement, we are left to the scriptures and various traditions as well as our own faith and imagination. It seems to me that no one who is well known is well known in exactly the same way by everyone everywhere. We do have to know enough of the same things together to be able to communicate about Jesus. That is what the scriptures and the creed are for. The teaching magisterium of the Church has to be faithful to those just as we are. (The document, DOMINUS JESUS, was an example.) After that, Jesus, in so many profound ways, is SOMEONE TO THINK ABOUT.
It Has Been Said
IT HAS BEEN SAID: Easter isn’t just about you and me and our present spiritual experience, or our hope beyond the grave. Easter is the beginning of God’s new world. The idea of a ‘New Age,’ so popular just now, is a feeble pagan parody of the reality, which is this: that when Jesus burst out of the spiced tomb on the first East Day the history of the cosmos changed its course. That’s when the real New Age began; and it’s perhaps because we’ve lost sight of that fact that the so-called ‘New Age’ of today, with all its mumbo-jumbo and its half-baked pseudo-philosophy, has come in to fill the vacuum. Easter is the victory of the creator over all evil. It is the victory of the God of love over all tyranny – tyranny of right as well as of left, and indeed tyranny of the muddled centre that sprouts its ugly head from time to time. It declares, that after all, God is God, and that his kingdom shall come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Easter speaks of a world reborn.
From: FOLLOWING JESUS – Biblical Reflections on Discipleship by N.T.Wright