The Person of Jesus

Author: Melanie Blaszczak
September 28, 2018
26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Have you ever thought about Jesus being fully human and fully divine? I often find myself thinking about Jesus in a divine sense being that he is the Son of God. Which, by the way, is 100% correct?  But I remember a few years ago struggling to see Jesus as fully human.  But that’s also 100% correct.  It’s not a 50% cotton, 50% polyester blend.  Jesus is fully God and fully man at the same time.

Jesus had emotions and feelings where on some occasions he laughed and others he cried. I didn’t often think of him that way until I picked up a book called Rediscover Jesus one Advent season. This book was written by Matthew Kelly, a famous Catholic speaker and author, whose name I recognized because we use his Confirmation book in Religious Ed at my Parish. In this book Kelly talked about Jesus and how we should look at him not only as divine and “up there” as many of us do, but that he’s at the same time fully human; God-made-flesh dwelling among us.

One chapter in particular stuck out to me and it was the chapter that talked about Jesus being a radical and having radical teachings. Not radical in the sense of an extremist trying to overthrow a government (as perhaps some people were hoping the Messiah would be), but still radical in a certain sense.  We don’t often think of God Himself as being radical, but when we consider the humanity of Jesus, we find that He was pretty radical in a lot of what He did and said. I had a difficult time thinking about Jesus as a radical. It wasn’t until this book that I started noticing the radical language that Jesus used to explain His points in the Bible. After reading this book, I started to wholeheartedly agree with the author. There’s nothing about what Jesus did or taught that was conventional. He cured people on the Sabbath and taught above loving our enemies, and He was so dedicated to the mission the Father had sent Him on, that he willingly gave up His life for us and for the Kingdom of God. A radical by definition can be a person who holds or follows strong convictions or extreme principles, and that certainly is what we find with Jesus.

In this week’s Gospel we see some radicality come out in Jesus that might make us feel uncomfortable or uneasy because he is not portrayed as this loving 2nd-grade version of Jesus. He uses statements like, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off,” or “And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” Of course He didn’t mean these statements to be taken literally, but it is more of a means to wake up the people to hear what He is saying. He is using this exaggerated language to get people’s attention so that they can pay more attention to sin. Jesus is saying that we should be vigilant when it comes to sin and when something is evil or sinful we should cut that out of our lives. Sin is a total rejection of God’s love in our lives and it breaks our relationship with God; So, of course, if something is evil or sinful wouldn’t we want to get rid of it? But that is easier said than done! And the Lord knows that, so let us take more of an advantage of His mercy in Confession.

This week let us pray for that conviction to be radical when it comes to our own faith. Let’s do whatever it takes to turn away from our sin and turn back to God.  And let that conviction spark within us a fire of His love in our lives that helps us to live out our call as his disciples and most importantly his sons and daughters.  For he knows of our sinful nature, and He has given us this great sacrament of reconciliation, not to shame us or belittle us, but to run back to His love.

Even when we fail God he is still waiting with open arms, just look at Jesus’ outstretched arms on the cross!
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