The mystery surrounding Jesus

There have been many figures throughout human history that have exerted a profound influence on the world. No single figure has exerted more influence than the first century prophet from Nazareth called Jesus the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ.

To speak of the mystery of Jesus Christ is to acknowledge, first of all, that human life itself is mystery. Human beings are not just minds and bodies; they are also spirit. God is the supreme Mystery and, as St. Paul remarks, it is only ‘in God that we move and live and have our being'. Mystery, then, invades every dimension of our lives including our knowledge of ourselves and our world. Mystery is at the heart of our relationships with others. the more we come to know and appreciate another person, the more we become aware of the depth of mystery and the reality of God in that person.

People touched by the story of Jesus respond in different ways and at different levels. However, it remains true that Jesus continues to capture the imagination of people and inspires new vision and hope in them.

How then do we enter into the mystery of this Jesus? To begin, we need to situate ourselves within the living tradition of the followers of Jesus. Some have retreated to a monastery, to contemplate the mystery of Christ in solitude and prayer; others have chosen to live their lives inspired by Jesus to heal the sick, defend the poor and uphold the rights of people against all forms of injustice.

From very early times in Christian history, it became evident that there are essentially two distinct approaches to the mystery and reality of Jesus. One is the emphasis is on the events in the historical life of Jesus: the one who came among man. The other approach is the divine origins of Jesus. These two approaches are meant to be complementary.

To understand Jesus we need to locate him in the first stories that were told about him, the Gospels that were written by the early followers of Jesus in the decades after his earthly life. We need to realize that the Gospels are faith-stories rather than biographies. The intend of the Gospel-writers was not to prove anything, but to provide an account of how God became man. The Gospels are source of witness to the earliest experiences of faith in Jesus the Christ, the special messenger of God.

This does not mean that the Gospels are unhistorical. They tell us much about the Jesus of history and the events of his historical life. The Gospels are based on eye-witness accounts which, however, are first of all told in stories before they are committed to writing. In fact, it is some thirty to sixty years after Jesus' death that the Gospels are written in their final form. This means that we can identify three different layers of tradition underlying the Gospel stories: the original words and deeds of Jesus; the oral proclamation of the apostles; and the written words of the Gospel-writers. Consequently, we can say that the Gospels are a complex set of documents that combine history and theology, facts and faith, events and interpretation. Each of the Gospels does this in a unique way.

It seems that each Gospel-writer is struck by a different aspect of the mystery of the person of Jesus. This means that the four Gospels present us with different portraits of the same Jesus. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew are especially concerned to situate Jesus within the framework of Jewish faith and life. For Mark, Jesus is the suffering Messiah; for Matthew, he is the new Moses and teacher of the new law. In the Gospels of Luke and John, Jesus is seen as the Saviour of all people within and beyond the world. In Luke Jesus is identified as the one in whom the Holy Spirit is especially present; in John Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.

We face the mystery of Jesus Christ with our contemporary twenty-first century eyes. Accordingly, we will develop our view with reference to the issues and questions that are part of our world and experience. We could not do otherwise.