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Scripture

Mercy In The Bible

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What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God? A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced…

What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God?

A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced with a guttural sounding ch) is one of those delightfully untranslatable terms one finds in the Bible. It has the idea of “the giving of a break” but means much more than that. It combines the notions of “kindness,” “faithfulness,” “truth,” “persistent and steadfast loyalty” and, most of all, “love.”

We see it frequently in the context of the “unfailing love” God shows for Israel in the context of the covenant.

Though untranslatable, chesed captures an important dimension of divine mercy: steadfast and true kindness based on the covenant. Chesed is a wonderful word, but one that still fails to capture the fullness of mercy. Its relational dimensions make it too powerful to convey the idea of the seemingly random act of kindness toward someone you don’t really know well or who doesn’t deserve it. For that we need the term rachamim (again with the guttural ch sound). This one has a near English equivalent: “pity” or “compassion” — something akin to the sentiment that causes you to fall for the three-legged puppy who is neither cute nor potty-trained, but whose attraction is precisely that no one else wants him. In some cases rachamim even extends to family members.

Joseph is overcome with it in dealing with his brothers with whom by all rights he should have been angry (see Gn 43:30). God was furious with Israel, too, after the creation of the golden calf. Yet in one of the Bible’s most famous declarations of mercy, God turns away from his anger declaring in his sovereignty, “I who grant mercy [rachamim] to whom I will” (Ex 33:19).

The Greek New Testament unsurprisingly talks a great deal about “mercy,” too — using different language, of course. The most common term is eleeos, made famous in the Kyrie Eleison rite at Mass right before the Gloria where Catholics say, “Lord, have mercy.” Eleeos truly does mean something very close to what English speakers mean by “mercy,” combining the Hebrew ideas of chesed and raham. It is precisely because he is the “Son of David” with all that implies in terms of God’s covenant that Jesus is asked to take pity on blind Bartimaeus (see Mk 10:47-48; Mt 9:27; 20:30-31; Lk 18:38-39).

What the New Testament adds to “mercy” is splankna, another term difficult to capture perfectly in English, which suggests warm feelings from the deepest innards of the human person. The “deepest innards” is often translated “heart,” although splanknonpoints anatomically to the “guts” below the rib cage. Confusion on this point led to the Douay Rheims’ famous translation of Philemon 1:7 as “the bowels of the saints have been refreshed” when the idea is that the innermost being of the people of God was being renewed. When it comes to God, splankna is a “tenderizer” seasoning added to God’s mercy. The famous Canticle of Zechariah’s “tender mercy of our God” (Lk 1:78) combines the terms splankna and eleeos together.

So now with a little philology under our belt, we are now in a position to do a little biblical theology. We know roughly what God’s mercy is, but who gets it and how?

One central idea advanced by Our Lord is the connection of divine mercy for people with people’s mercy for one another.

This is the message of the parable of the debtor (see Mt 18:21-35) as well as the Lord’s Prayer — “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:12). Our reception of divine mercy is wholly contingent on our ability to show mercy to others. This is not only because of the social dimension of chesed; by making God’s forgiveness contingent on our forgiveness we become a channel of divine mercy, which flows through us to others.

Another crucial aspect to the flow of mercy is based on the humanity of Jesus Christ. His humanity enables him to become our High Priest who is able to identify with our fleshly weaknesses, since he took on frail humanity himself, yet without sin. It is through the humanity of Jesus that we can approach the throne of grace confidently and receive mercy (see Heb 4:14-16).

But let’s not fall into the trap that mercy and forgiveness is an attribute of the New Testament while the God of the Old Testament remains a deity of wrath and judgment. Even a cursory knowledge of the Bible reveals that there are many times when mercy is shown in the Old Testament and many times when divine wrath and judgment are threatened in the New.

Old Testament Prophets

And the Year of Mercy, emphasized the scope of mercy, particularly for those on the margins or the periphery. This is a question actually of great salience for the Old Testament writers in terms of avoiding wrath or receiving mercy, but also in defining the boundaries to which mercy could extend. Does it extend to Israel alone even if Israel is just as culpable as the other nations? Or can the nations receive it, too? And in no place were these very difficult questions more discussed than in the Book of the Twelve, aka the twelve minor prophets from Hosea through Malachi.

The Book of Joel is all about God’s judgment and who can avoid it when it seems that it is in store for everyone. The prophet says in Joel 2:14, “Perhaps he [Yahweh] will again relent and leave a blessing.”

This is key to the biblical idea of mercy — maybe we will get it, but God certainly doesn’t owe it to us. Therefore, we have no right to presume it. On the other hand, if we repent and show our repentance with prayer and fasting, maybe there is hope (see Jl 2:15-18).

In fact, God is merciful (see Jl 2:18-27) and will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh in advance of the judgment (3:1). Paradoxically, “all flesh” do not escape judgment. The nations will be destroyed as God’s people will be exalted (Chapter 4), because they did not call on the name of the Lord (3:5) and accept his mercy. Joel’s view is a somewhat hopeful picture that God’s wrath on the Day of the Lord can be escaped by the few who have the Spirit.

But Amos’ take on judgment is strikingly different. He makes it crystal clear that the various judgments against the nations are fixed; Yahweh, in fact, will not repent (“revoke the punishment” is the translation in the Revised Standard Version; see 1:3,6,9,11,13; 2:1,4,6). The punishments are coming and there is nothing that the nations, or Judah and Israel, can do to avoid them.

And those who have read Joel and actually want the Day of the Lord (see Jl 2:1-2) are in for a rude awakening (Am 5:17). For Amos it will be darkness and not light, with no hope — none at all.

Amos’ message is almost wholly negative. Jonah, however, turns Amos’ message on its head. Due to the reluctant prophet’s preaching, the Gentile king of Nineveh dares to perceive the same prospect of mercy for his people that Joel had for Judah (see Jon 3:9).

And he received it! God did what Amos said he would not do — he “repented” of the judgment he would inflict (see Jon 3:10). The same God, “slow to anger” in his dealings with his covenant people (Ex 34:6), shows himself “slow to anger” with a wicked Gentile nation as well (Jon 4:2).

On the other hand, Nahum rejoiced with sadistic glee that despite its slowness, God’s judgment eventually did fall upon Nineveh after all (see Na 1:3a). But the pendulum swings back again with Habakkuk. Yes, God may punish the Assyrians, but his chosen instrument for doing so is Babylon, and they are about to come down to destroy God’s people in Judah as well (Hb 1:5-6).

Zechariah finds a way for the nations to benefit from God’s coming kingdom after all — the reign which is the main subject of his book (see Zec 14:9). The nations that fight against God will be vanquished, of course (Zec 14:1-4), yet, paradoxically, the portions of the nations who survive the war and become loyal to the true worship of God will experience divine blessing (14:16-21).

On the other side of the Cross, Paul, in Romans 9-11, wonders how it can be that God is showing so much mercy to mostly Gentile Christians while non-Christian Jews seem to have lost the mercy they once possessed. Will God once again withdraw the mercy shown to Gentiles and return it to the Jews? It is hard to say!

Mercy is deeply paradoxical.

Mercy will fall next where we least expect it. God will exalt His people and punish His enemies both in history and at the end of history, but He has enemies both inside and outside the visible boundaries of Israel/Church, and even His people within Israel/Church need purification and have done things worthy of divine chastisement, as have others outside Israel/Church who stand nonetheless to benefit from the purification and be restored to God’s friendship afterward.

Mercy is understandable only against the background of sin and imminent judgment from which no one is exempt. Everyone must repent and show mercy to others, and the greatest hope for mercy is in the humanity of Jesus Christ.

Repentance does not guarantee that one will avoid suffering and chastisement, but it is the constant condition necessary to receive God’s mercy that He stands forever prepared to offer to everyone.

Dr. Peter Brown is the Academic Dean for Catholic Distance University. 

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Scripture

Importance of Jesus’ Parables

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Parables are perhaps the best-known aspect of the Lord’s teaching in the New Testament, but in this He accommodated himself to patterns of teaching already in use at the time….

Parables are perhaps the best-known aspect of the Lord’s teaching in the New Testament, but in this He accommodated himself to patterns of teaching already in use at the time.

In the Old Testament, God commanded Ezekiel to teach Jewish exiles in this manner (see Ez 17:3-21; 19:1-14). Here the prophet was employing the Hebrew genre mashal. The genre appears in older settings (Jdg 9:7-15), but probably the best known is the mashal of the ewe lamb that the prophet Nathan used to convict David of his murder of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sm 12:1-4).

What is a mashal? A mashal is usually translated as “riddle,” but really it is less a brainteaser than an allegory told with different levels of meaning, with each element corresponding to a real life referent — here, the “rich man” is David, the “poor man” Uriah and the “ewe lamb” Bathsheba.

The Good Shepherd. Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

Parables can be very short, proverbial and aphoristic. Luke 5:36 and 6:39, for instance, are simply pithy, memorable sayings. In fact, in Luke 4:23, what the Revised Standard Version Bible and New American Bible translates as “proverb” is parabole in the Greek.

More common, however, are the extended parables that involve several different aspects of comparison — for example, Matthew 7:24-27 and the parable of the two houses, one built on sand and the other on rock. The Lord — unlike his hypocritical opponents — actually puts into effect His own advice, choosing a rock named Peter on whom to build His house the Church (see Mt 16:16-18).

The parables of Jesus in Matthew highlight theological themes found only in the first Gospel. The well-known parable of the wheat and the weeds (see Mt 13:24-30) and the more concise parable of the fishnet (Mt 13:47-50), both serve to underscore the Church as a mixed body consisting of both saints and sinners whom God will providentially leave in place until the time of the great eschatological separation.

Even parables common to more than one Gospel are recorded differently by each of the Evangelists. Some, like the parable of the wicked tenants are understood by friend and foe (see Mt 21:45; Mk 12:12; Lk 20:19). But the misunderstanding motif figures enormously in Mark’s version of the parable of the sower (4:1-20). Most homilists will take the view that the parable concerns our receptivity to the Word of God. But I am afraid this is a case in which the homilists have allowed the more familiar versions of the story in Matthew and Luke to color their reading. In the context of Mark, thus far there has been a great deal of opposition to Jesus and very little receptivity. Even the disciples of Jesus who have followed Him do not understand Him and demonstrate fear and unbelief (Mk 4:12-14; 4:40; 6:50-52; 7:17-18; 8:17-21). They have received the mystery of the Kingdom all right, but apparently not the knowledge and understanding that must come with it (compare Mk 4:11 and Mt 13:11).

Jesus’ Approach

The Gospel of Mark’s ironic introduction to parables begins in 4:10. Jesus is asked why He teaches in parables. What is striking is that He does not respond the way we imagine that He should, with something like, “Parables are my way to use earthly similitudes to convey heavenly realities because such analogies are the only things earthly human beings can understand.” Astonishingly, Jesus himself explains that parables are not to teach anyone anything at all, but rather to confound and confuse and to separate the insiders of Jesus from the outsiders for whom parables will be opaque (see 4:11-12).

The Laborers in the Vineyard. Shutterstock

But if this is the case, why should the disciples of Jesus have needed an explanation of the parable at all? “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables?” (Mk 4:13). In the context of Mark, the disciples are little more secure than the enemies of Jesus who are confounded by his message. How often in real life have we seen the irony of supposed Church insiders not getting the message at all?

What is going on here is that our understanding of parables is being challenged. In this instance, it is not really about our response at all, or, more precisely, it is about the fact that in spite of the opposition of enemies of the Kingdom and in spite of the moral and intellectual failings of the Kingdom’s putative friends, the Kingdom will succeed immensely in the end. Even though most of the seeds sown by God seem to be failing, the ones that do take root will bear abundant fruit. In other words, the parable is, first, Jesus’ explanation of why the apparent failure of His ministry is, in fact, part of God’s plan — much as Isaiah’s original mission was to harden hearts for a time (see Is 6:9-13). Second, the apparent failure of the kingdom proclamation will be the seeds of its success. We could even say that not only is the parable of the sower a parable about the kingdom proclamation of Jesus, but it is a parable about parables.

The Prodigal Son

The parable of the sower shows us that we should be a little more careful about naming parables than we usually are. This parable could have been called the parables of the seeds or the parable of the soils, and each name would subtly affect our interpretation. But nowhere is the name we impart to the parable more powerful to affect our construal of it than in the parable of the prodigal son (see Lk 15:11-32).

Unlike the aphoristic parables or even the more extended ones such as the mustard seed (see Mk 4:30-32), this one has a complete story line and most of us know its basic outline. A son sells all his goods and runs away from the family, squandering his precious inheritance in the process. But then, realizing the self-imposed squalor of his condition, he repents, and his overjoyed father runs halfway down the road to meet him. The father gives him a great celebratory banquet, delighting that his lost son has now been found. From the classic spiritual “Amazing Grace” to countless homilies, this parable of repentance has piqued the religious imagination of Christians of all stripes down through the centuries.

But perhaps the repentance and joyous acceptance of the Father is not the parable’s most important theme. Often left out entirely from reflection is the anger of the elder brother, who thinks he has received nothing for his years of fidelity while his lesser, disobedient sibling is welcomed back to the family on an equal basis. The parable of the prodigal son, in fact, could be more aptly named the parable of the elder brother. Read in its entirety, the parable of the prodigal son seems like an expansive retelling of Matthew’s parable of the two sons (see Mt 21:28-32). In both cases the parables are Jesus’ thinly veiled commentaries on the state of affairs in the Church with the younger brother as a stand-in for the wayward Gentiles — welcomed back to the people of God after centuries of dissolution and rebellion — and the elder brother representing Jewish Christians, upset that their long-held privileged position in the family is being compromised.

But whatever we call it, Luke’s parable of the elder brother is among the most famous in the Jesus tradition. Indeed, as the state of Idaho’s motto is “Famous Potatoes,” Luke’s Gospel’s motto should be “Famous Parables.” It is only Luke who contains the well-known parables of the accursed fig tree (see 13:6-9), the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31) and real sleepers like the parable of the widow and the unjust judge (18:1-8). By far the most famous of the special Lucan parables is that of the good Samaritan.

The Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan. Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

On a surface level, the message of this one is easy to grasp — the true love of neighbor will be shown by the one who actually extends mercy (in this case corporal mercy) — and not necessarily by the professional religious. But a fuller understanding of the good Samaritan must include the degree to which the parable is profoundly subversive of the religious assumptions of Jews living in Palestine for whom a “good Samaritan” was a contradiction in terms and actually rather scandalous.

But whether they scandalize or challenge us, motivate or frighten us, we encounter the heart of Our Lord’s teaching in the parables and thus the mind of the Lord himself. The style of the teaching wasn’t unique, but the Divine Person whom we encounter is!

Dr. Peter Brown earned his doctorate in Scripture from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He serves as academic dean of the Catholic Distance University.

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Scripture

Who Is Melchizedek?

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After Abram [later to be named “Abraham”] defeated the forces of King Chedorlaomer, “Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High….

After Abram [later to be named “Abraham”] defeated the forces of King Chedorlaomer, “Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High. He blessed Abram with these words: ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, / the creator of heaven and earth; / And blessed be God Most High, / who has delivered your enemies into your hand!’ And Abram gave him a tenth of everything” (Gn 14:18-20). Like other kings of this time, Melchizedek carried out priestly functions. Here, as in Psalm 76:3, Scripture identifies “Salem” with “Jerusalem.”

Psalm 110 begins, “The Lord says to my lord.” In Matthew 22:41-45, Jesus tells us the psalmist is David, and that he is addressing the Messiah when he sings, “You are a priest forever in the manner of Melchizedek” (Ps 110:4). The end of that verse can also be translated as “because of the word of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 7:17 addresses the words “you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” to Our Lord as the divine high priest.

The first Eucharistic prayer calls a roll of notable offerings — those of Abel, of Abraham and of Melchizedek — as prefigurings of the redemptive sacrifice offered by the divine Son of God.

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Scripture

How can you teach children with abusive parents to honor their fathers and mothers?

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The Fourth Commandment — in the context of the other commandments and, indeed, the whole Bible and the Catholic moral tradition — implies that to be honored parents must first…

The Fourth Commandment — in the context of the other commandments and, indeed, the whole Bible and the Catholic moral tradition — implies that to be honored parents must first of all be honorable and upstanding. There is nothing that states or implies that children must yield to and honor the behavior of parents who act dishonorably. Teachers and catechists must always make that point clear in an age-appropriate way.

Second, I would say that with the vastly improved identification and procedural systems in Church and society regarding child abuse, it is less likely that children will be misled by the Fourth Commandment. Balance, subtlety and wisdom in catechesis and in the general nurturing of children are the keys to avoiding problems here.

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Scripture

What is the Meaning of the Many Numerals in Scripture?

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For any student of the Bible, it doesn’t take long to see that certain numbers appear throughout both the Old and New Testament. For instance, there are the 12 tribes…

For any student of the Bible, it doesn’t take long to see that certain numbers appear throughout both the Old and New Testament.

For instance, there are the 12 tribes of Israel and the Twelve Apostles. God rested on the seventh day of creation in Genesis, and one cannot forget the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.

What is the story behind all these numerals? Why do they appear again and again? For us as Catholics, do numbers mean more?

The practice of interpreting numbers is nothing unique in religious history. Cultures have applied meaning to numbers since the beginning of civilization. However, numbers found in the Bible have taken on mystical meaning across the centuries.

Assigning meaning to numbers in the Bible is an ancient practice known as gematria, a Greek term meaning calculation. It is based on numbers which are assigned to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Gematria is thus the calculation of those letters, which translate into words or phrases. By assigning a numerical value to a word or phrase, it is believed that two words with the same numerical value have some significant meaning to each other or simply to the number itself. Numbers thus have a key role in understanding God’s role in the universe.

For instance, the number 40 is used throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Noah was afloat during the Great Flood for 40 days and 40 nights (see Gn 7), Moses and the Israelites spent 40 years in the desert and Jesus was tempted by Satan for 40 days (Mk 1:13). Jewish tradition has it that the number 40 represented a time of transition where an extraordinary event occurs.

Enter the Church Fathers

Around the second century, the Church Fathers — those who clarified or passed on Christian doctrine — were quite familiar with this Jewish tradition of assigning numerical meaning to words or phrases. However, they condemned the use of numbers as having some magical significance. Instead, they taught that the numbers found in the Holy Scriptures were full of mystical meaning which could be interpreted for deeper significance.

For instance, St. Augustine, in a letter replying to Tichonius the Donatist, said, “If Tichonius had said that these mystical rules open up some of the hidden recesses of the law, instead of saying that they reveal all the mysteries of the law, he would have spoken truth.”

As well, it would have been around these first centuries of Christianity that the formal rituals which related to public worship and the Mass were taking shape. The question to ask then would be: Is there numeric symbolism in the sacrifice of the Mass or in some of the prayers for Catholics? The answer is yes.

For instance, as Catholics, we have the threefold penitential right — Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison — and the Agnus Dei, or Lamb of God. Outside of the Mass, we have a certain number of Masses that are offered for the dead. The Latin word novena is the root for our novenas. These nine days of prayer are thought to be based on the time that Mary and the disciples prayed in the Upper Room before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Finally, if one wants to pray a 54-day Rosary Novena they will end up praying six full novenas. The first three should be offered for a particular intention and the last three novenas offered in thanksgiving.

In short, when it comes to numbers in the Bible and in Catholic tradition, nothing is coincidence.

Eddie O’Neill writes from New Castle, Colo.

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Scripture

What We Believe, Part 2: What Scripture Says of Jesus

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To know what we believe, we must read Scripture. But what does the Bible say about Jesus? One way to answer this question is to examine the names and titles…

To know what we believe, we must read Scripture. But what does the Bible say about Jesus?

One way to answer this question is to examine the names and titles of Christ. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church takes this approach (see Nos. 422-455). Theologians both Catholic and Protestant have done this for centuries. Simply put, it’s an easy way to explore how Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament — by studying his many titles. Examining only a few will be sufficient.

The most emphatic and repeated thing Scripture says of Christ, as Peter preached at Pentecost, is that he was crucified and killed, but that “God raised him up” (Acts 2:23-24). That is, Jesus is the Risen One. Such was the disciples’ most profound experience and what compelled them to preach to anyone who would listen.

Believing that central message, however, only inspired more questions — biographical ones. Like, where was Jesus from? Who were his parents? What did he do and say? Jesus was a teacher, clearly. He was also recognized as a prophet and acted like one. But how was Jesus different from other teachers and prophets? The Gospels were written to answer just such questions — to meet faith’s curiosity, the desire to know more — just as Theophilus desired to know, the one for whom Luke wrote his Gospel (Lk 1:3-4).

Such desire, such curiosity, is fundamental to the Gospels, and it carries us into the whole world of the Bible. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked. “The Messiah,” Peter answered (Mt 16:16). This makes sense only in light of the Hebrew Scriptures, as is true of almost all that’s said of Jesus in the New Testament. For instance, the word “Messiah,” the Greek translation of which is “Christ,” simply means “anointed.” In the Old Testament prophets, priests and kings were “anointed.” The Messiah for whom Andrew longed, as did the Samaritan woman, was imagined as a sort of king, like kings of old — the regal fulfilment of God’s promise to David that his kingdom would never end.

So Jewish meaning, you see, gives meaning to Jesus. Such is true even for his name — “Jesus.” The angel Gabriel gave Mary this name (Lk 1:31); it’s the same name as “Joshua,” transliterated also sometimes “Yeshua” or “Yehoshua.” Succeeding Moses, Joshua led the people into the Promised Land. Jesus, in a sense, did the same. The name also evokes the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the four consonants that are in the Hebrew Scriptures, the unpronounceable, and at times unwritable, name for God. “Jesus” simply means something like “YHWH saves.”

The Jewish web of meaning also helps us understand titles like “Son of Man,” which is how Jesus often spoke of himself. In one sense it simply means “human,” for we are all sons or daughters of “man” (Ps 8:4). Yet, in another sense — and especially as Jesus spoke of the “Son of Man,” say, in Luke’s Gospel — it evokes the enigmatic figure found in the Book of Daniel, the “son of man” presented before the “Ancient One” at the end of history given “an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away” (Dan 7:13-14). “For just as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day” (Lk 17:24). Jesus here was not simply employing a colloquial term for “human.” Rather, he was placing himself within the destiny described in Daniel. When Jesus talked about his death and resurrection, or about the end of the world, or when he said the “Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth,” it’s likely that this mysterious passage from Daniel came to the minds of his listeners, certainly to the Gospel writers (Mt 17:22-23; Mk 2:10-11). It is as if that is what the evangelists wanted us to understand about Jesus, about who he is and what happened to him, that we should understand him in terms of the eternal victory Daniel mystically saw.

Another term used of Jesus was “servant.” Peter called him “servant Jesus” (Acts 3:13). Paul said Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7). Early on for Christians, talk of Jesus as servant evoked the Songs of the Servant found in Isaiah. In the so-called fourth Song of the Servant, for example, an enigmatic servant is “spurned” and “pierced for our offenses.” Yet, by “his stripes we are healed,” the text says (Is 53:3-5). It is easy to see how early Christians interpreted these passages from Isaiah in light of Jesus, as prophetic images of his death and resurrection. Such is how Philip explained this passage to the Ethiopian eunuch, for instance (see Acts 8:32-35). It also, along with imagery from Exodus, makes sense of what John saw in the Book of Revelation, the living triumphal “Lamb that seemed to have been slain” (Rev 5:6).

Jesus was also called “Son of God.” In the Old Testament a “son of God” was sometimes an angel or a king (Job 1:6; Ps 2:7). In the Gospels, however, more is meant. Mark’s Gospel, as it reads at the beginning, is the “gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). The whole story Mark tells leads to just this realization, voiced in the words of the centurion. “Truly this man was the Son of God” he says at the foot of the cross (Mk 15:39). But what does that mean? To call Jesus “Son of God” in one sense doesn’t immediately suggest Jesus’s divinity. When, however, Jesus prays to be glorified with the glory he shared with the Father from “before the world began,” we begin to see that “Son of God” means something more. Rather, it describes the unique relationship Jesus claimed to have with God, whom he called “Abba” or “Father” (see Jn 5:17-18) and which, adopted by the Holy Spirit, believers also have (Rom 8:15). Jesus, in this sense, is the “firstborn” of God’s many children, those in whose hearts the Holy Spirit is poured (Rom 8:29; 5:5).

Now, all this thus far simply speaks to the hope of Israel, and that Jesus fulfills it. He was, however, called other things that say more. For instance, calling Jesus “Lord” as both Peter and Paul did (Acts 2:35; Rom 10:9; Phil 2:11) was perhaps the most radical thing one could say of him. Calling Jesus Lord carried both religious and political meaning. Religiously, one could argue, it identified Jesus with God himself. Whenever Jewish scribes came across YHWH in the Hebrew Scriptures, for instance, out of respect they often replaced it with “Adonai,” which is translated “Lord.” And politically, of course, Caesar was “Lord.” Thus, to call Jesus “Lord” was blasphemous to some and seditious to others. Which is why, for Christians, calling Jesus “Lord” was so charged and also dangerous.

And no less daring, at least philosophically, was to call Jesus “Word.” That is what John said of him, that Jesus is the Word that “was with God” and “was God” (Jn 1:1). This should be read in light of Isaiah where God speaks of his word that goes forth from his “mouth” (Is 55:11), but also in light of all the words of God and the Law, which Moses begged Israelites to keep and pass onto their children (Deut 32:46). It also evokes the word spoken by God at creation (Gen 1:3). The Greek mind, though, would have read “Word” a variety of ways: as speech, as concept, as the rational organizing principle of the cosmos. Philo, the Jewish philosopher, understood it to be the divine reason of things. This makes John’s statement startling, that in Jesus the “Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Here we’re talking about not simply the fulfillment of Israel’s hope, but something more. It is a unique claim that Nicaea would summarize only a few centuries later — that the Father and the Son are “consubstantial,” that Jesus is “God from God.”

Now, this is but little of what is said of Jesus in the New Testament. There is, of course, so much more. John said as much at the end of his Gospel (Jn. 21:25). St. Athanasius said the same, that trying to learn about Jesus was like trying to count waves on the sea (On The Incarnation, No. 54). There is, indeed, much more. Yet, one must start somewhere, and Scripture is the best somewhere to begin. Because what we believe is found in the Bible, and it is also where you will be found if you keep reading. For the truth is, we are all sought by what we are seeking. So, keep reading until you are found.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.

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