Hints for a Christology:: Here we presuppose what we have already seen about the person and mission of Jesus Christ in the various previous Posts. In addition to the same, certain points may be given here as hints for a new Christology.
A Christology for the 21st century can be comprehensive only if we study the entire New testament with the background of the Old testament as well as the scriptures of the World Religions. Our attempt here is to just hint at certain indications for building up such a Christology in view of the importance of Gospel proclamation. For this purpose we start with our faith that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead sitting now at the right hand of God the Father for the salvation of all men and women ever born into this world and those yet to be born till the end of time. This is the faith of the Church, proclaimed by the Apostles and their successors in the church as the Gospel message. It is a message of Good News in the sense that we have been extricated from a hopeless situation of sin and degradation by the gratuitous act of God in Jesus Christ. It is an act of God transcending all religions including the Christian religion as the latter is but a feeble attempt to proclaim the mighty act of God. In its mission to proclaim the Good News of universal salvation, the Church has often been restricted in its understanding and interpretation of the same as a result of its imperfect self-understanding. A true Ecclesiology doing justice to its immense potentialities will go a long way in promoting the true mission of the Church.
The Servant of god: The Gospel according to Matthew refers to Jesus in the midst of his public ministry as the one in whom the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 42: 1-4 has been fulfilled. " 'Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, on whom my favor rests; I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim judgment among the nations. He will not strive, he will not shout, nor will his voice be heard in the streets. He will not snap off the broken reed, nor snuff out the smoldering wick, until he leads justice on to victory. In him the nations shall place their hope' " (Matthew, 12: 18-21). What the servant of God does, therefore, is not according to the standard and expectations of the world. He is guided solely by the Spirit of God. His sole concern is to lead the justice of God to victory and not to interfere in the affairs of the world before the right time. The content of the justice of God and the means to attain it are mentioned in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapters 5-7. As a result of the victory of this justice of God, all the Nations shall place their hope in the servant of God, i. e., Jesus Christ. According to the Gospel of Luke, the mission of Jesus is seen in connection with another passage in the prophet Isaiah, chapter, 61: 1-2. Jesus read the passage from the scroll handed over to him in the Synagogue of Galilee: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me; he has sent me to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release of prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind; to let the broken victims go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke, 4: 18-19).
Just like the mission of Jesus, the mission of the Church and the mission of anyone on the side of Jesus start with an infusion of the Holy Spirit resulting in a new way of looking at the world. It is not that the Good News is restricted to the poor, but only the poor in spirit in the sight of God is able to receive the Good News. The prisoners, the blind and the broken victims are really poor in the sight of God to whom an amnesty is declared by the Gospel. This is to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Without being bound by any set pattern, Jesus breaks into new avenues of the Lord's ways with the humans as he was anointed by the Spirit. This is the function of the priest according to the order of Melchizedek and all those called for the mission of Jesus are priests according to the order of Melchizedek.
Different views on Jesus: If we examine the Gospels, we have different pictures of Jesus Christ complementing one another. The four Gospels were written from different perspectives, called their theologies, although all of them were adaptations of early oral traditions circulated in the believing communities. Those traditions were direct or indirect offshoots of historical events surrounding the life, activities, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus, the Gospels are not to be seen as biographies of Jesus in spite of the fact that they were based on his life on this earth. The one most important ingredient in the writing of the Gospels is the faith of the Church in the risen Jesus Christ that could not but strongly influence the perspectives of the writers even when they wee dealing with the historical earthly life of Jesus. If someone were to think that any history with a perspective of faith is no history at all, we must remember that there is no history without some perspective or other! When we deal with heavenly and spiritual matters, having a perspective informed by faith is no crime at all! It is true also of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that could not be purely historical nor a mere outcome of faith in him. These are threshold realities where our power to grasp and express them in language cannot be the same as when dealing with purely mundane things. The redeeming feature that salvages the historicity of such events is the conscious acknowledgement of the perspective involved in recounting them. For the same reason, re-interpretation of historical events should not be arbitrary and should be based on history itself.
Mark: Among the four Gospels w have at present, the Gospel according to Mark was the first one to be written. As is evident from the beginning of the gospel, the over-riding concern of Mark was to present Jesus Christ to the world as Son of God. "Here begins the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God" (Mark, 1: 1). The first Gospel. therefore, did not think it necessary to start earlier than the public ministry of Jesus. It was a starting point of a life open to all that could be presented without any conjectures or theological constructions. This does not mean that Mark's Gospel is a pure description of events that took place as the Word of God always comes to us through theological interpretations. The theology of Mark is governed by his attempt to present Jesus as the Son of God through what he said and did as well as by his death , resurrection and ascension. This was achieved by Mark through a phenomenological analysis of the life of Jesus on this earth without recourse to his pre-existence with the Father.
Matthew and Luke: The Gospels according to Matthew and Luke, which depended on the Gospel of Mark besides the available traditions in the early Church, wanted to complete the origins of Jesus through their Infancy Narratives and the Genealogies. The fact that the two Infancy Narratives and the genealogies in the two Gospels do not agree in every detail proclaims the real intent of the authors. It was not an exact biographic description of Jesus, but was a device to bring out the theological import of the person of Jesus for the audiences targeted.
The targeted audience of Matthew was the Christian Community of Palestine, a result of conversion from among the Jews. For the Jews it was enough to start and end everything with Abraham, their father. King David was the other important personality as they were always expecting the re-establishment of his kingdom. The captivity in Babylon was the blot in their national character they would not like to be reminded about. Matthew used all these as milestones in his division of Genealogy into 3 sets of 14 generations culminating in Jesus Christ. That the messiah, who was their expected Savior and King, actually appeared in Jesus Christ was presented by means of the visit of 3 Wise Men from the East. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus was in fact the promised Kingdom although it was not restricted to the Jews, but extended to the whole of humanity. Matthew also tried to show that the Church was but a continuation and fulfillment of the Jewish religion. .
The audience targeted by Luke was mainly the non-Jews without neglecting the Jewish roots of the Gospel message. The Jewish root is reflected in the narration of John the Baptist's birth and the importance of Jerusalem Temple both at the beginning and end of the Gospel. However, the compassion Jesus showed to the sinners and the marginalized like the poor shepherds receiving the Good News of the birth of the Savior may be seen as the main feature of Luke's Gospel. Even at his birth, Jesus did not have a place of his own to lay his head on and was forced into the company of the animals in a stable. The Savior of the world had to totally depend on Mary and Joseph who fled to Egypt to save the life of Jesus from King Herod. Since Jesus came to save the whole world, the Genealogy ended not with Abraham but with Adam who was the son of God (See Luke, 3: 38). (To be Contd).
A Christology for the 21st century can be comprehensive only if we study the entire New testament with the background of the Old testament as well as the scriptures of the World Religions. Our attempt here is to just hint at certain indications for building up such a Christology in view of the importance of Gospel proclamation. For this purpose we start with our faith that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead sitting now at the right hand of God the Father for the salvation of all men and women ever born into this world and those yet to be born till the end of time. This is the faith of the Church, proclaimed by the Apostles and their successors in the church as the Gospel message. It is a message of Good News in the sense that we have been extricated from a hopeless situation of sin and degradation by the gratuitous act of God in Jesus Christ. It is an act of God transcending all religions including the Christian religion as the latter is but a feeble attempt to proclaim the mighty act of God. In its mission to proclaim the Good News of universal salvation, the Church has often been restricted in its understanding and interpretation of the same as a result of its imperfect self-understanding. A true Ecclesiology doing justice to its immense potentialities will go a long way in promoting the true mission of the Church.
The Servant of god: The Gospel according to Matthew refers to Jesus in the midst of his public ministry as the one in whom the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 42: 1-4 has been fulfilled. " 'Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, on whom my favor rests; I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim judgment among the nations. He will not strive, he will not shout, nor will his voice be heard in the streets. He will not snap off the broken reed, nor snuff out the smoldering wick, until he leads justice on to victory. In him the nations shall place their hope' " (Matthew, 12: 18-21). What the servant of God does, therefore, is not according to the standard and expectations of the world. He is guided solely by the Spirit of God. His sole concern is to lead the justice of God to victory and not to interfere in the affairs of the world before the right time. The content of the justice of God and the means to attain it are mentioned in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapters 5-7. As a result of the victory of this justice of God, all the Nations shall place their hope in the servant of God, i. e., Jesus Christ. According to the Gospel of Luke, the mission of Jesus is seen in connection with another passage in the prophet Isaiah, chapter, 61: 1-2. Jesus read the passage from the scroll handed over to him in the Synagogue of Galilee: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me; he has sent me to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release of prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind; to let the broken victims go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke, 4: 18-19).
Just like the mission of Jesus, the mission of the Church and the mission of anyone on the side of Jesus start with an infusion of the Holy Spirit resulting in a new way of looking at the world. It is not that the Good News is restricted to the poor, but only the poor in spirit in the sight of God is able to receive the Good News. The prisoners, the blind and the broken victims are really poor in the sight of God to whom an amnesty is declared by the Gospel. This is to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Without being bound by any set pattern, Jesus breaks into new avenues of the Lord's ways with the humans as he was anointed by the Spirit. This is the function of the priest according to the order of Melchizedek and all those called for the mission of Jesus are priests according to the order of Melchizedek.
Different views on Jesus: If we examine the Gospels, we have different pictures of Jesus Christ complementing one another. The four Gospels were written from different perspectives, called their theologies, although all of them were adaptations of early oral traditions circulated in the believing communities. Those traditions were direct or indirect offshoots of historical events surrounding the life, activities, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus, the Gospels are not to be seen as biographies of Jesus in spite of the fact that they were based on his life on this earth. The one most important ingredient in the writing of the Gospels is the faith of the Church in the risen Jesus Christ that could not but strongly influence the perspectives of the writers even when they wee dealing with the historical earthly life of Jesus. If someone were to think that any history with a perspective of faith is no history at all, we must remember that there is no history without some perspective or other! When we deal with heavenly and spiritual matters, having a perspective informed by faith is no crime at all! It is true also of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that could not be purely historical nor a mere outcome of faith in him. These are threshold realities where our power to grasp and express them in language cannot be the same as when dealing with purely mundane things. The redeeming feature that salvages the historicity of such events is the conscious acknowledgement of the perspective involved in recounting them. For the same reason, re-interpretation of historical events should not be arbitrary and should be based on history itself.
Mark: Among the four Gospels w have at present, the Gospel according to Mark was the first one to be written. As is evident from the beginning of the gospel, the over-riding concern of Mark was to present Jesus Christ to the world as Son of God. "Here begins the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God" (Mark, 1: 1). The first Gospel. therefore, did not think it necessary to start earlier than the public ministry of Jesus. It was a starting point of a life open to all that could be presented without any conjectures or theological constructions. This does not mean that Mark's Gospel is a pure description of events that took place as the Word of God always comes to us through theological interpretations. The theology of Mark is governed by his attempt to present Jesus as the Son of God through what he said and did as well as by his death , resurrection and ascension. This was achieved by Mark through a phenomenological analysis of the life of Jesus on this earth without recourse to his pre-existence with the Father.
Matthew and Luke: The Gospels according to Matthew and Luke, which depended on the Gospel of Mark besides the available traditions in the early Church, wanted to complete the origins of Jesus through their Infancy Narratives and the Genealogies. The fact that the two Infancy Narratives and the genealogies in the two Gospels do not agree in every detail proclaims the real intent of the authors. It was not an exact biographic description of Jesus, but was a device to bring out the theological import of the person of Jesus for the audiences targeted.
The targeted audience of Matthew was the Christian Community of Palestine, a result of conversion from among the Jews. For the Jews it was enough to start and end everything with Abraham, their father. King David was the other important personality as they were always expecting the re-establishment of his kingdom. The captivity in Babylon was the blot in their national character they would not like to be reminded about. Matthew used all these as milestones in his division of Genealogy into 3 sets of 14 generations culminating in Jesus Christ. That the messiah, who was their expected Savior and King, actually appeared in Jesus Christ was presented by means of the visit of 3 Wise Men from the East. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus was in fact the promised Kingdom although it was not restricted to the Jews, but extended to the whole of humanity. Matthew also tried to show that the Church was but a continuation and fulfillment of the Jewish religion. .
The audience targeted by Luke was mainly the non-Jews without neglecting the Jewish roots of the Gospel message. The Jewish root is reflected in the narration of John the Baptist's birth and the importance of Jerusalem Temple both at the beginning and end of the Gospel. However, the compassion Jesus showed to the sinners and the marginalized like the poor shepherds receiving the Good News of the birth of the Savior may be seen as the main feature of Luke's Gospel. Even at his birth, Jesus did not have a place of his own to lay his head on and was forced into the company of the animals in a stable. The Savior of the world had to totally depend on Mary and Joseph who fled to Egypt to save the life of Jesus from King Herod. Since Jesus came to save the whole world, the Genealogy ended not with Abraham but with Adam who was the son of God (See Luke, 3: 38). (To be Contd).
No comments:
Post a Comment