Who is Jesus?

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Last week I started a class in Christology, which is the study of Jesus, in particular his dual nature as fully man and fully God.

Opening his  lecture, the professor said that, sadly, few Catholics ask the question,“Who is Jesus?”

To this I gave a mental shrug and thought to myself, “What’s to wonder? He’s the second person of the Trinity, the son of God incarnate of the Virgin Mary, just like it says in the creed.”

The lecture went on to discuss the various ways in which scholarship has, throughout the ages, attempted to separate the historical man named Jesus from the Christ who is the foundation of Christianity. Trying to commit to memory the definition of nominalism, and learning a concise explanation of what the Deists believed, occupied my mind for the rest of that study period.

During my evening reflection, however, the question “Who is Jesus?” bubbled up again. The intrusive thought annoyed me – hadn’t I already answered that? – but immediately on the heels of the question came the Scripture story about Jesus asking the apostle, “Who do you say that I am?” as well as the lyrics “You say you love the baby, then you crucify the man.”

I have always liked that phrase (from Jim Croce’s song “Which Way Are You Goin’?”) because to me it ring trues as a portrait of the people who profess to be Christians but get uptight when asked to welcome the stranger, love their enemies or turn the other cheek.

As I pondered, it occurred to me that neither the baby in the manger nor the man on the cross is particularly godlike. The one is a helpless infant to whom human nature draws us to cuddle and coo; the other is a helpless bloody form that repels us for fear that we might end up the same way.

A baby is how the human Jesus came into the world; on the cross is how he left it. During the 30-odd years in between he showed many aspects of himself: There was the son obedient to his mother who turned water into wine, but not too much later asked, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” There was the gentle healer, the empathetic forgiver of sins, the man who welcomed children and outcasts, but then there was the acerbic critic, the teller of tales of unbending morality, the man who cleansed the temple with a whip.

 All of these are aspects of a very complex human being, except the bit about turning water into wine. With that Jesus becomes a miracle worker who goes on to heal the suffering, cast out demons, feed the hungry, and when challenged on his ability to do these things, claims to be the Son of God. Then his enemies arrange for his death in the most shameful and barbaric way possible, at which point they are able to scoff, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself!”

It’s quite dizzying to try to decide just which of these myriad aspects is the real Jesus, so I’m not surprised that so many efforts have been made to find proof of which one it really was. In this matter the Gospels are no help – each of them emphasize a different aspect of Christ, and Jesus himself added to the confusion; at various times he called himself “the true vine,” “the bread of life,” “the gate,” the “good shepherd” and a couple of other things. In the face of this, a cynic like me can easily just throw up her hands and demand, “Well, which one ARE you, then?”

Which leads me back to where I began: “Who is Jesus?” It’s a question to which I thought I had the correct reply, but I guess I don’t. Maybe after spending the next 11 weeks learning how the Church responds I’ll have a better answer. Tune in again at the end of July, and I’ll let you know what I come up with.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic.