Who is Jesus Christ?

Who do you say that I am?

 

Instead of letting difficulties draw you into worrying, try to view them as setting the scene for My glorious intervention.  Keep your eyes and your mind wide open to all that I am doing in your life (Jesus Calling: Jan. 6).

 

Here is the crux of the matter:  do we view our lives as ourselves trying to "imitate" Jesus (ha!), or do we view our lives as His opportunity to live His life in us to the glory of His Father in heaven?  He is eternal; what He did on earth, He continues to do in us today, as we "offer our bodies as living sacrifices, as is your reasonable worship" (Rom. 12:1)?

 

Basil the Great, in his writings on who Jesus is, pulls together some Scriptures to illustrate His living work in the world today:

 

Let us speak the truth in love and let us grow in every way toward him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, fit together and put together through every joint with which it is supplied, makes bodily growth according to the proper activity of every single part (Eph. 4:15-16).

 

[Jesus Christ is active today in every member of His body, working to make each one of us suitable and living parts of the whole body, the church.  That means that our growth in holiness is His work, not ours.]

 

The one holding fast to the head, that is, to Christ, from whom every body, endowed with joints and ligaments, grows with the growth of God (Col. 2:19).

 

From his fullness, we have all received (John 1:16).

 

Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24)  [This is the "fullness" He imparts to us on a daily basis as we remain in communion with Him -- the work is His, not ours].

 

He who has seen Me has seen the Father (Jn. 14:9).

 

So that they may honor the Son just as they honor the Father (Jn. 5:23).  [This alone should tell us that Jesus is no mere historical figure, even as great as Buddha or Mohammed, but far above every name that can be named in heaven or on earth.]

 

We beheld His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father (Jn. 1:14).

 

The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father (Jn. 1:18).

 

He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father (Jn 5:23).

 

[Basil:  "How, then is it not audacious to rob the Son of his communion with the Father in the doxology, as if he deserved to be ranked in a lower place of honor?...the glory is common to the Father and the Son, and so we offer the doxology to the Father with the Son.]

 

Through Him we have access to the grace in which we stand and rejoice (Rom. 5:2). [When it comes to what Jesus does for us continually, on an on-going basis, Basil says that Jesus first brings to us the grace of goods from the Father and then leads us through himself to the Father:]

 

[Basil:  "Scripture calls him by countless different titles on account of the manifold character of his grace towards us.... It calls him shepherd, king, physician, the very bridegroom, way, door, living water, bread, axe, and rock....these titles indicate the variety of his action, which he supplies to the needy according to the particular circumstance out of his concern....]

 

Basil goes on in his writing to elaborate and explain each of the titles above in terms of what it means to us today.  I will give just one example:  "He is a rock, because through his strength, he is for the faithful an unshakeable protection, a wall that cannot be breached."

 

Reading Basil's writings is a shortcut for our own work of reading and contemplating the Scriptures in regard to what they can tell us about who Jesus Christ is and what He does for us on a moment-by-moment basis:  From His fullness, we have all received one grace after another.  [Basil: "for the soul's every help comes through Him, and His particular names are intended to reflect a particular kind of care....since He was content to have compassion on our weaknesses and was able to accommodate our infirmity.]

 

We owe a great debt to the Fathers of the church -- and, in fact, to the heresies which they were combatting in their writings.  For the heresies forced the fathers to search the Scriptures for us and to formulate what they tell us about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  We could (and probably should) do the work for ourselves, but to have an Augustine or a Basil, or Ignatius of Antioch, etc. lay out for us the teachings of Christ and their implications is a great grace for us.  Unfortunately for the church today, most of us were brought up on doctrine -- what the church teaches -- rather than on inspiration -- why we believe the doctrines.  Perhaps our work as adult Catholic Christians is to explore the things we have been taught, to meditate and to assimilate those teachings into our very souls and minds.

 

To know Jesus is to know the "exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead...(Eph.1:19].  The very same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us today!  Can anything be greater than this?  Can anything be further from the idea that we are ourselves trying to "imitate Christ" by living a moral life?  (Of course, we are trying to 'imitate Christ' by applying to ourselves His great power to do in us what we cannot do for ourselves -- that is how we open ourselves to the working of His power in us.  But let no one believe that it is our effort to imitate Him that does the work in us.)  Here is an example of what I mean:  for years, I wanted to know how on earth we were supposed to 'love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us.'  I read about Corrie Ten Boom forgiving her captor in the concentration camp, the one who had killed her sister.  And I asked many people where that power came from.  Gradually, in my asking and seeking and trying on my own, I realized the impossibility of my doing this in my own nature.  I had to allow Jesus in me to do the work in me:  What is impossible for man is possible for God.  With my 'giving up, my surrender to a 'higher power,' as the AA people have all learned, all things were possible to me. 

 

Who is Jesus Christ?  He is Lord and Savior, the incredibly great power of God toward those who accept Him as such.