Jesus: History and fact Madison Catholic Herald – Catholic Herald

Lukes Gospel contextualizes Jesus birth in its historical moment, mentioning in Chapter 2 that Caesar Augustus initiated the census which brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem and that Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Chapter 3 situates the preaching of John the Baptist in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Anna and Caiaphas.

Why does Luke take the time to mention all of these names and places, most of which are remote and unfamiliar to us?

This narrative of figures and geography reinforces the truth that our Christian faith is historical and factual; Jesus Christ is an actual person who lived in a particular place, in a precise moment, in a specific context of human experience.

Contrast this historicity with the myths of ancient religions, which were ahistorical, not rooted in facts or events which could be chronicled and studied.

No record exists of the Roman and Greek gods and goddesses coming to earth and speaking and acting with human beings, of actually entering into world history.

Before the Incarnation of the Son of God in the birth of Christ, human history was on a profoundly wrong course, trapped in the throes of sin and death, ignorant of the God of Israel, locked in futility, and trapped in an existence separated from the Lord.

In His infinite mercy and saving love, the Father sends the Son on a rescue mission to earth, to free us from the power of the ancient curse, to transform us into His adopted children, to forgive our sins, and to offer us eternal life.

This Good News constitutes the essence of the Gospel, God breaking into time and space in order to reorient all of human history to Himself.

Through His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ has unleashed the Kingdom of God into the timeline of world events, transforming the meaning of the human project and revealing the ultimate purpose and destiny of each person the Father created.

In the Book of Revelation, we see the Apocalypse, a word signifying an unveiling or an ultimate revealing.

At the end of human history, Christ definitively and permanently conquers the power of sin and death, pronounces judgment on every single soul, and hands the Kingdom over to His Father.

In the New Jerusalem of Heaven, we will love God perfectly, be joined in the Communion of Saints, and celebrate the Marriage of the Lamb, the ultimate consummation of the nuptials between Christ and the Church.

In this apocalyptic context and theological understanding, the Eucharist becomes our sacramental participation in this anticipated finalization of human history.

In the Mass, we offer our worship, praise, and thanks to God, we are joined to the Communion of Saints and we share in the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

In the Mass, we enter into the vast beautiful world of the risen Christ and we already stand at historys end point the unveiling of the victory of the Lord over the tyranny of sin and death.

These truths, properly understood, reinforce the central importance and urgency of our regular and faithful participation in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, especially every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation.

In the Christmas event, God literally inserts Himself into human history, reordering, redeeming, and transforming it into an ultimate narrative of salvation, a drama of the interplay between grace and sin, as every human soul either responds to the impulses of conversion which the Lord offers or rejects such a divine invitation.

This reality signifies that the history of each one of us, the events of our lives, the moral decisions we make, the words we speak, our ultimate choice for God or for the false self, only find their ultimate meaning in Jesus Christ.

Shakespeares Macbeth famously pronounces that life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In stark contrast to such dark nihilism, Christianity asserts that history is a tale told by God, full of love and mercy, signifying eternal life.

The astonishing Good News of this holy season is that, because of Jesus, our individual lives have ultimate and joyous purpose and that human history, even with its horrors and tragedies, is inexorably headed towards the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

Two thousand years ago, our Lord visited our planet and loves us so much that He chose to stay with us through the life and ministry of the Church, until the end of the world.

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Jesus: History and fact Madison Catholic Herald - Catholic Herald