Jesus Christ

In my post earlier today, we spoke of our response to Divine Revelation, which is faith.  We spoke of the different aspects of faith, one of them being that faith is assent not just to God, but to all that He has revealed.   There are many things He has revealed, but besides the Trinity, I would propose the following is the most important, and it is spelled out in paragraph 423 of the Catechism.

We believe and confess that Jesus of Nazareth, born a Jew of a daughter of Israel at Bethlehem at the time of King Herod the Great and the emperor Caesar Augustus, a carpenter by trade, who died crucified in Jerusalem under the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, is the eternal Son of God made man.

In simpler terms, the historical person Jesus of Nazareth is God.

Wow.

It is such a profound statement to make.  To call someone who walked the face of the earth "God"  seems a little strange when you honestly think about it.  It seems a rational person could not ever make such a statement and still be called sane.  Yet, it is exactly what we do as Catholics do because that is what the Church teaches.  The person of Jesus Christ is the heart and soul of our faith.

Who is Jesus Christ?   The Catechism speaks of several titles which highlight different aspects to his rich personhood.

1) Jesus Christ is Savior.  The name Jesus in Hebrew means "God saves."
2) Jesus Christ is the anointed One.   The word Christ comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew word "messiah" which means "anointed".   Jesus is consecrated for a mission, namely to save us.
3) Jesus Christ is the Son of God.   He is the Second Person of the Trinity.  In the Old Testament, and even in Jesus' time, "Son of God" could simply mean one who has a special relationship with God, but not necessarily be God Himself.  However, beginning with Peter's confession of faith in Matthew 16:16-17, when Jesus says only the Father could have revealed the correct answer to Peter, it takes on its fuller meaning.
4) Jesus Christ is Lord.    Jesus demonstrates power over nature, illness, demons, and even death.  He has lordship over the world, and all the powers in it.
5) Jesus Christ is the Word of God.  (See the prologue to the Gospel of John).  The Word is the Wisdom of God, present from the beginning.  As we have alluded to earlier when we spoke of Divine Revelation, when God speaks, he speaks, in the end, one Word, and that Word is Jesus.

Those, I think, are the most important titles of Jesus.  There are others, but those are the ones the Catechism gives prominence.  As part of our response of faith, we call Jesus all those titles, and more.

Yes, Jesus is God, but he is also man.  The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).  Jesus is true God and true Man.   Throughout the history of the Church, there have been different heresies that sought to deny one or both of these realities.  This has led the Church to make different statements about Jesus to clarify for the faithful and for the world the substance of Jesus. He is fully man, and fully God.  He has two natures, a human one, and a divine one, that are united in one person.   He likewise has two wills, human and divine, but they never are in conflict.  The human submits to the divine.
He is not two people. 
He is not God some of the time, and man some of the time. 
He did not cease to be God when He became Incarnate of the Virgin Mary.

He is forever united to us in His humanity and divinity.

This is what makes Jesus so special, and why I love Him.  He is God and man.  
As a man, He knows what we go through.  He understands our conditions.   We can speak to him as a brother.
At the same time, as God, He is also our Lord and Savior, the one who opened the door for us to become His adopted children, and be able to live in the Blessed Trinity, our ultimate destiny.  The Trinity is a family, and the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, is one of the family members.  He is the one who left the family home to rescue us, the lost sheep, and enable us to become members of this family. 

Wow.

What a man, what a destiny.

We will speak more about the life of Jesus and its significance for us in future posts.  We will also speak about the other aspects of our faith besides the historical person of Jesus Christ.  But nothing, besides the Blessed Trinity, is more central to our faith than this Divine Person, so we definitely started in the right place.

In closing, let us recall how Joseph, and the world, first heard of the sweet name of Jesus, as we read in the first chapter of the first Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew.

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
²⁰ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Joseph, foster father of the Son of God, pray for us.