Christ's claims

Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time A-1

Entrance Antiphon Ps 66 (65):4 All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Most High!

Collect Almighty ever‑living God, who govern all things, both in heaven and on earth, mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: 1 Samuel 18:6-9; 19:1-7; Psalm 56:2-3, 9-10-13; Mark 3:7-12

Jesus retired with his disciples to the sea and a great multitude followed him from Galilee and Judea, from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the area of Tyre and Sidon. A great number, hearing the things which he did, came to him. He directed his disciples to make a small boat ready for him lest the crowds overwhelm him. He healed many and all who suffered evils pressed on him to touch him. The unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him and cried, saying, “You are the Son of God.” And he strictly charged them that they should not make him known. (Mark 3:7-12)

Not many can be found who, knowing of Jesus of Nazareth, would deny his greatness in one or other sense. The Dalai Lama acknowledged him on one occasion, referring to him as a great instance in history of the spirit of the Buddha. Islam readily admits his greatness as a prophet, and no one could possibly deny his outstanding influence on the world. The issue is not his greatness for all admit of this. Even the scribes and Pharisees who gradually became — out of jealousy — his implacable enemies, could not avoid his greatness. The issue is above all over the claims — especially one — as to his person. It is obvious that he was a man and a very great one at that — although some gnostic groups in the early Church even called into question that he was a true man. The claim that provoked the outrage of the Pharisees and provided the excuse they needed to move against him is expressed in our Gospel passage today. It is that, while being truly man (which was obvious to all and which Christ knew to be so) he is the Son of God. Our Gospel passage reports the devils shouting this great fact out. The devils had divined that this person before them who possessed such invincible spiritual power and unassailable holiness was the Son of God, and Christ imposed silence on them not to make him known. It was the great mystery which our Lord revealed only gradually but nevertheless unambiguously. We read in the Gospel of St John that our Lord referred to God as his own Father, and the scribes and Pharisees attempted to stone him for, they said, he was only a man and yet he was making himself equal to God. Finally before the Sanhedrin our Lord bore witness to the truth of his person. He was the Son of the Living God, and they would see him coming on the clouds of heaven seated at the right hand of the divine Power. He was God’s Son and equal to God. It is the crunch point, the claim that Christ himself made, that his disciples make of him, and that the Catholic Church makes and has made of him from the beginning. It is the parting of the ways between Catholic Christianity and Judaism, the parting of the ways between Christian doctrine and the doctrines of the many great and not so great religions of mankind.

This matter of the claim of Christ and his followers that he is divine is no mere curiosity. It is not a mere academic matter. It relates directly to what Christ claimed to do and what mankind can therefore expect to benefit from him. In our Gospel passage today our Lord is shown attracting vast crowds to him and “he healed many and all who suffered evils pressed on him to touch him.” (Mark 3:7-12) Those who came to him and who benefited from his healing and exorcising power did not know that this man who was dispensing such benefits was God the Son. Rather, he was obviously a great prophet acting as an instrument of the power of God. But Christ did not come simply to heal, to raise to life some who had died, and to drive out many devils. These were just signs of something far greater to come which he would do for man, and that was to take away the sin of the world and to make men children of God. It is especially here that his divinity was so absolutely necessary. No mere man could possibly take away the sin of the world and in principle make it new by pouring out the Holy Spirit on mankind. At the threshold of his public ministry before he was publicly known, John the Baptist had revealed to some of his disciples our Lord’s mission. He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He had come to give man a share in the divine nature, making of him an adopted child of God. It is for this essential work that our Lord’s divinity would be so necessary. That is why so much hangs in the balance of acceptance of his claims of being divine. Time and again during his public ministry our Lord showed that faith in him was the prelude to receiving from him his blessings. Likewise faith in his divinity, in his claim to be the Son of God and equal to the Father, is the prelude to receiving from him the blessings of salvation from sin and sanctification to holiness. Belief in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God is the intended door to redemption.

Let us day by day take our stand with Jesus and contemplate his person, his words and his claims. Let us draw near to him for, as he says, he is meek and humble of heart, and we shall find rest for our souls. He is at the centre of the universe and is its Lord. He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings, and of his Kingdom there will be no end. He is the Son of God made man, and it is he and he alone who takes us to the Father. Let us cleave to him and thus find life in his name.

(E.J.Tyler)

---------------------