Q: [One of us?]
A: I believe that, in Jesus, God became one of us. God
incarnate (Jesus) shared a common name with thousands of other Jewish boys—yet
for all practical purposes He remained a stranger. For thirty years almost no
one outside Nazareth knew Him, let alone grasped His divine identity.
To be certain, Jesus’ manner and character impressed many in His town. He
epitomized the Jewish ideals of truthfulness, wisdom, reverence, and love. But
no one—perhaps only His widowed mother—knew He was God in a human body.
Shortly after turning thirty years of age, however, Jesus embarked on a most
difficult task—revealing His true identity to a people long convinced that God
was in His heaven, period.
Jesus revealed God’s desire for nearness to us. How much closer could He have
come than by becoming one of us? Jesus was perfect. Without sin. Full of
emotion. Fully God and at the same time fully human.
I reject the misconception popular in certain pseudo-religious circles that
Jesus was passionless, mild, weak. How pathetic—and how utterly unsupported by
the earliest historical records, which paint vivid pictures of Jesus’ emotions.
Here is a man who loves and rebukes, who laughs and cries. Far from a
caricature, we see Jesus four-dimensionally and fully alive.
Jesus wasn’t simply a first-century wonder-worker, either. He didn’t perform
magic shows. Jesus’ earthly miracles were pointed and purposeful because they
were all related to the kingdom of heaven.
In his gospel, St. John calls these miracles “signs.” Signs of what? Signs of
God’s mercy and power. Signs that demand a response: Do you believe Jesus is
God-become-man, or not?