At the heart of Christianity is the Cross. It is the leitmotif of Latin Christianity.
And He knew it was coming. Knew He was to be betrayed, slandered, condemned, delivered into the hands of strangers to be killed, by whom He was mocked, spat on, scourged, and crucified. In the end, apart from His mother, a disciple, and a few of the women, abandoned.
But who was He? What was He? A man, that much, it seems, we can be sure of today (Docetism being a gnostic heresy quickly disposed of). But, if the testimonies are to be believed, not just a man: A prophet, indeed ‘The Prophet’, the Son of man, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Wisdom and Power of God.
The Gospels present Jesus as a teacher, a healer, a wonderworker, and, although this is not explored by the scribe, a threat to the good order and safety of the community. In some ways a threat to the Jewish religion, and beyond that a political threat. (That He was crucified makes clear that the execution was of a political and not a religious act.)
But how did Jesus think of himself? In what way did He want to be remembered? The question crops up more than once in the Scriptures, and the highlight seems to be Peter's affirmation, 'thou art the Christ, the son of the living God'.
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As far as a teacher goes, there's not a great deal in His teaching that cannot be paralleled in contemporary or earlier Jewish thought. Even the twofold command – to love God and to love one's neighbour – is presented by St Luke not as His teaching, but as a summary of the Law, provided by a Jewish lawyer in answer to His question.
Jesus is not presented as a great teacher with a new message — He preaches the Law and the Prophets. What is presented is someone who speaks with a new and, if He is to be believed, a remarkable authority.
Jesus is not a philosopher with some new teaching, some new interpretation of the universe, nor is her presented as a moral teacher with a new moral code, though it is true that love is central to His ethos, especially so if we believe the Johannine and Pauline corpus.
This sense that Jesus is not summed up in his teaching, whether philosophical or moral, is underlined by the fact that Jesus wrote nothing himself. But there are other ways that He gave His disciples something to remember Him by.
One such is the Lord’s Prayer.
Another is the Eucharist.
Had Jesus been a philosopher, a teacher, then we would have a philosophy on the nature of God and his relationship to the world; on divine providence and so on. Had He been a moralist, then we would have a morality with God as the source of our moral values, moral commandments, and so on.
But the way Jesus wanted to be remembered seems to suggest something else.
The Lord's Prayer first and foremost teaches us that God as Father is the One to whom we pray. Not the God of the metaphysical Absolute; not the God of the moral Good. God is not some ultimate principle or final value, most definitely not the exemplar of all that is best in man.
We call him ‘Father’, but we know that we are His by His choosing, by filial adoption. This point is made absolutely clear in the Hebrew Scriptures, God chose Abram and called him:
Deuteronomy 10:15: "And yet the Lord hath been closely joined to thy fathers, and loved them and chose their seed after them, that is to say, you, out of all nations, as this day it is proved"
Deuteronomy 14:2: "Because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God: and he chose thee to be his peculiar people of all nations that are upon the earth."
Ezechiel 20:5: "Thus saith the Lord God: In the day when I chose Israel ... and appeared to them in the land of Egypt, and lifted up my hand for them, saying: I am the Lord your God"
The notion that we are in some way inherently divine, or by some other right enjoy quasi-divine status, simply by virtue of the fact we exist, is not and never was an Abrahamic idea. At best it's a sentimentalism, at worst, the operation of a self-involved ego.
This is repeated emphatically by John: "And he said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world" (8:23), "You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you" (15:16). Man cannot choose God in the sense that man cannot know God as anything other than an abstract philosophical speculation, unless God choose to reveal Himself to man.
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The seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer constitute a complete theology: a series of petitions that belong to everyman and yet which simultaneously evoke the central mysteries of His remembrance: theology (the contemplation of the divine, rather than an intellectual exercise), theosis (transformation in the Holy Spirit, adoption by grace), equality with the angels, participation in eternal life, the reconstitution of the true human nature, the abolition of sin, and the overthrow of evil.
These are not just mysteries to contemplate, still less riddles to be solved. They are icons that draw us into direct communion with God. The Symbols of Faith. They reveal the mystery of the Trinity which, in turn, makes our adoption, our participation in the divine, possible, as sons and daughters in the Son, one body in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
God bless
Thomas
And He knew it was coming. Knew He was to be betrayed, slandered, condemned, delivered into the hands of strangers to be killed, by whom He was mocked, spat on, scourged, and crucified. In the end, apart from His mother, a disciple, and a few of the women, abandoned.
But who was He? What was He? A man, that much, it seems, we can be sure of today (Docetism being a gnostic heresy quickly disposed of). But, if the testimonies are to be believed, not just a man: A prophet, indeed ‘The Prophet’, the Son of man, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Wisdom and Power of God.
The Gospels present Jesus as a teacher, a healer, a wonderworker, and, although this is not explored by the scribe, a threat to the good order and safety of the community. In some ways a threat to the Jewish religion, and beyond that a political threat. (That He was crucified makes clear that the execution was of a political and not a religious act.)
But how did Jesus think of himself? In what way did He want to be remembered? The question crops up more than once in the Scriptures, and the highlight seems to be Peter's affirmation, 'thou art the Christ, the son of the living God'.
+++
As far as a teacher goes, there's not a great deal in His teaching that cannot be paralleled in contemporary or earlier Jewish thought. Even the twofold command – to love God and to love one's neighbour – is presented by St Luke not as His teaching, but as a summary of the Law, provided by a Jewish lawyer in answer to His question.
Jesus is not presented as a great teacher with a new message — He preaches the Law and the Prophets. What is presented is someone who speaks with a new and, if He is to be believed, a remarkable authority.
Jesus is not a philosopher with some new teaching, some new interpretation of the universe, nor is her presented as a moral teacher with a new moral code, though it is true that love is central to His ethos, especially so if we believe the Johannine and Pauline corpus.
This sense that Jesus is not summed up in his teaching, whether philosophical or moral, is underlined by the fact that Jesus wrote nothing himself. But there are other ways that He gave His disciples something to remember Him by.
One such is the Lord’s Prayer.
Another is the Eucharist.
Had Jesus been a philosopher, a teacher, then we would have a philosophy on the nature of God and his relationship to the world; on divine providence and so on. Had He been a moralist, then we would have a morality with God as the source of our moral values, moral commandments, and so on.
But the way Jesus wanted to be remembered seems to suggest something else.
The Lord's Prayer first and foremost teaches us that God as Father is the One to whom we pray. Not the God of the metaphysical Absolute; not the God of the moral Good. God is not some ultimate principle or final value, most definitely not the exemplar of all that is best in man.
We call him ‘Father’, but we know that we are His by His choosing, by filial adoption. This point is made absolutely clear in the Hebrew Scriptures, God chose Abram and called him:
Deuteronomy 10:15: "And yet the Lord hath been closely joined to thy fathers, and loved them and chose their seed after them, that is to say, you, out of all nations, as this day it is proved"
Deuteronomy 14:2: "Because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God: and he chose thee to be his peculiar people of all nations that are upon the earth."
Ezechiel 20:5: "Thus saith the Lord God: In the day when I chose Israel ... and appeared to them in the land of Egypt, and lifted up my hand for them, saying: I am the Lord your God"
The notion that we are in some way inherently divine, or by some other right enjoy quasi-divine status, simply by virtue of the fact we exist, is not and never was an Abrahamic idea. At best it's a sentimentalism, at worst, the operation of a self-involved ego.
This is repeated emphatically by John: "And he said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world" (8:23), "You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you" (15:16). Man cannot choose God in the sense that man cannot know God as anything other than an abstract philosophical speculation, unless God choose to reveal Himself to man.
+++
The seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer constitute a complete theology: a series of petitions that belong to everyman and yet which simultaneously evoke the central mysteries of His remembrance: theology (the contemplation of the divine, rather than an intellectual exercise), theosis (transformation in the Holy Spirit, adoption by grace), equality with the angels, participation in eternal life, the reconstitution of the true human nature, the abolition of sin, and the overthrow of evil.
These are not just mysteries to contemplate, still less riddles to be solved. They are icons that draw us into direct communion with God. The Symbols of Faith. They reveal the mystery of the Trinity which, in turn, makes our adoption, our participation in the divine, possible, as sons and daughters in the Son, one body in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
God bless
Thomas
I find it spiritually dull, somewhat generic and utterly impersonal.