APPETIZER: The first humans, tempted by the devil, let trust in their Creator die in their hearts and, abusing their freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what the first human sin consisted of. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness in which they were created and become afraid of God because they have conceived a false or distorted image of him. The relationship between man and woman becomes subject to tensions...marked by lust and domination. Harmony with all creation is broken and humans, along with all creation are now subject to decay. Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: Death makes its entrance into human history. After this fall, humans were not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God...heralds the coming victory over evil and restoration from this fall through the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer. (cf. CCC#397-400, 410)
MAIN COURSE: Having taken a look at who Jesus is (Lesson #4) and how the Gospels faithfully hand on to us what he said and did when he lived on planet Earth (Lesson #5), it makes sense to ask a simple one-word question: WHY? Why did God the Son, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, leave the glory and power of Heaven to come down to us, to become one of us, and share our struggles in every way except for sin? The appetizer above gives us the fundament answer: to undo what Adam and Eve had done; to make it null and void for any human beings who chose to not follow them, but instead to follow Christ.
The Ancient Original Sin. We all know the story of Adam and Eve and how they chose to live life on their own terms instead of following God's way. Tempted by the devil they chose to disobey God and forfeit the many supernatural gifts he offered them. The Church has never taught that we must accept the Genesis stories to be literal historical accounts of our human beginnings. Instead, we believe that the Book of Genesis teaches us this story though the use of "poetic imagery" to converty religious truths. it is very important to realize that Bible is not a science text nor a history book in the way we typically understand these to be. It is a book of religion and theology (study of God) which brings us God's revelation through so many literary forms and a variety of divinely-inspired human authors.
Before Adam (which means Man) and Eve (which means Mother) committed what we call the ancient or original sin, humans were destined by God to live with one another and all creation in total harmony. In addition, each person was also to have this harmony within themselves so that there would be no such thing as confusion, anxiety or any inner conflicts. They were created to live peacefully on earth and in an intimate personal face-to-face relationship with God while doing so. There was no need to talk of "going to Heaven" because death did not exist. Sickness, suffering and death were unknown and never intended to be within human experience. But then that all changed.
The first humans chose to go their own way through life without direction from and companionship with God. Their access to God was roadblocked by the grand entrance of sin into human experiecne. They began to live lives that included toil and labor, conflict and argument, sickness, suffering and death. They no longer had the gifts of inner-harmony or social harmony and we see this right away in the second story of Genesis: the envious murder of Abel by his brother Cain. Trying to do and be good became a real struggle because of temptations to be selfish and choose evil.
But God, who is mercy and love, did not hold a grudge against humanity. Instead he promised to send a Savior, a Redeemer, the Messiah whom we also call the Christ, to offer humanity a way out of what Adam and Eve had done.
The Incarnation of Christ. However, before this could happen a major obstacle had to be met and overcome and it is this: how can any finite sinful human being make-up for the offense given to the infinite all-holy God? The two sides are not equal! The solution was found and actualized by the Persons of the Trinity themselves, so to speak. God the Son would freely choose to be sent as the ambassador of God the Father, and this would come about through the power of God the Holy Spirit. The Son would become a true man sharing fully in fallen human nature so that he could heal it of the wounds inflicted by the ancient original sin. We call this mystery of God becoming human the Incarnation, which comes from the Latin language meaning "taking on flesh".
The Immaculate Conception of Mary. For this to happen, God would prepare a human mother worthy to conceive and bear such a Son. In order for her to do this, to carry God within her and give him human life, she herself would need to free from the wounds of that ancient original sin. And so God created Mary of Nazareth and saved her, at the first very moment life in her mother's womb, from the touch of original sin. We call this the Immaculate Conception and we will examine it more fully in a later entree of our Bitesize Catechism. But for right now we need only know that she was specially prepared to become the Mother of God the Son.
The Dual Nature of Jesus. The Incarnation brings us face-to-face with a deep mystery and a theological question asked by the bishops and teachers of the early Church: If God the Son became human, is he 50/50 of each nature? In other words, is he like every child who is a mixture of both parents? And what does this mean when one of the parents is God the Father? You can imagine how seriously and how fiercely this was studied, debated and discussed for a few centuries! Finally, guided by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised would lead his Church into all truth, the pope and bishops met at the Council of Chalcedon in 451AD and officially defined and declared that Jesus of Nazareth is one person with two natures: a human nature and a divine nature. The true teaching of Christianity is that Jesus is fully both the Son of God and the Son of Mary. He is not 50/50 but rather 100/100. That is, he is fully and truly God and at the same time fully and truly human with all the qualities (except sin) that being human entails. We call this the dual nature of Christ (or in academic theological lingo the hypostatic union).
The Divinity of Jesus. This official decision of the Church did not stop the many questions and ponderings people had about Jesus, but it gave them a firm direction and helped those who accepted this teaching to not fall into theological error which we call heresy (although some indeed did so anyway). And really it is a question that can never ever be truly answered because the Incarnation is an utter mystery. No one (except Jesus) knows what it's like, what it means, to be both God and Human at the same time. The best we Christians can do is say "Yes, Jesus is fully divine" and then leave it at that. Sure, you will find preachers who talk as if they seem to know or authors of devotional books who claim to know. But they are simply offering personal reflections at best or misleading people at worst. We just simply do not have the answers and God has not seen fit to reveal them to us.
The Humanity of Jesus. It is so much easier for us to wrap our minds around Jesus the Man than Jesus the God because we all know from lived experience what it means to be human. But sometimes when we ponder the humanity of Jesus, we might tend to think that he had his faults and failings, but this would not be true in the moral or sinful sense. Yes, he did embrace a wounded humanity that got sick, suffered and became susceptible to death. But these things are not sins. They are simply human vulnerabilities. Yet he could be and was terribly tempted but never gave in to sin. Again, this is a mystery because we do not know what it means, what it is like, to be both divine and human at the same time. But it IS extremely important to know, for the sake of our topic this week, that Jesus took on and lived in all reality a true and full fallen human nature. Otherwise, he would have just been a "pretend man" and we would not be redeemed!
Putting it all Together. The reason Jesus became man without giving up his divinity was so that he could offer to God perfect love and perfect obedience from a true human being to make up for Adam and Eve's insult and sin. In other words, Jesus as the God-Man could offer the all-holy infinite God an all-holy infinite truly human apology for the ancient original sin. Do you see how that all fits together? It's genius! Only God could think such a thing up! Only God could actually pull it off! And only God did!
DOGGIE BAG: Here are a few things to take away from our study for spiritual snacking throughout the day.
Catholic Customs: The Jesus Prayer. There is an ancient prayer custom called the "Jesus Prayer" which is inspired by the Gospel story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14, read it). This short simple prayer goes like this, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." Many Christians use it as a repetitive prayer much like the rosary. They use an ordinary rosary or special "Jesus beads"or "Prayer Rope" and slowly, rhythmically repeat the Jesus Prayer quietly to themselves, often in unison with their breathing pattern. Many attest that this is a peaceful meditative form of prayer that keeps our human weakness and God's boundless mercy always in mind.
Contemporary Quote: “In a garden long ago, the two majestic beings God had created used their capacities for purposes other than reflecting the goodness of their Creator. Adam and Eve commandeered their design to worship themselves instead of God. Their children and grandchildren have been doing the same ever since.” (Jeremy Pierre, author and Baptist pastor)
Scripture Verse to Memorize:"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in
him might not perish but might have eternal life. " (John 3:16)
MAIN COURSE: Having taken a look at who Jesus is (Lesson #4) and how the Gospels faithfully hand on to us what he said and did when he lived on planet Earth (Lesson #5), it makes sense to ask a simple one-word question: WHY? Why did God the Son, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, leave the glory and power of Heaven to come down to us, to become one of us, and share our struggles in every way except for sin? The appetizer above gives us the fundament answer: to undo what Adam and Eve had done; to make it null and void for any human beings who chose to not follow them, but instead to follow Christ.
The Ancient Original Sin. We all know the story of Adam and Eve and how they chose to live life on their own terms instead of following God's way. Tempted by the devil they chose to disobey God and forfeit the many supernatural gifts he offered them. The Church has never taught that we must accept the Genesis stories to be literal historical accounts of our human beginnings. Instead, we believe that the Book of Genesis teaches us this story though the use of "poetic imagery" to converty religious truths. it is very important to realize that Bible is not a science text nor a history book in the way we typically understand these to be. It is a book of religion and theology (study of God) which brings us God's revelation through so many literary forms and a variety of divinely-inspired human authors.
Before Adam (which means Man) and Eve (which means Mother) committed what we call the ancient or original sin, humans were destined by God to live with one another and all creation in total harmony. In addition, each person was also to have this harmony within themselves so that there would be no such thing as confusion, anxiety or any inner conflicts. They were created to live peacefully on earth and in an intimate personal face-to-face relationship with God while doing so. There was no need to talk of "going to Heaven" because death did not exist. Sickness, suffering and death were unknown and never intended to be within human experience. But then that all changed.
The first humans chose to go their own way through life without direction from and companionship with God. Their access to God was roadblocked by the grand entrance of sin into human experiecne. They began to live lives that included toil and labor, conflict and argument, sickness, suffering and death. They no longer had the gifts of inner-harmony or social harmony and we see this right away in the second story of Genesis: the envious murder of Abel by his brother Cain. Trying to do and be good became a real struggle because of temptations to be selfish and choose evil.
But God, who is mercy and love, did not hold a grudge against humanity. Instead he promised to send a Savior, a Redeemer, the Messiah whom we also call the Christ, to offer humanity a way out of what Adam and Eve had done.
The Immaculate Conception of Mary. For this to happen, God would prepare a human mother worthy to conceive and bear such a Son. In order for her to do this, to carry God within her and give him human life, she herself would need to free from the wounds of that ancient original sin. And so God created Mary of Nazareth and saved her, at the first very moment life in her mother's womb, from the touch of original sin. We call this the Immaculate Conception and we will examine it more fully in a later entree of our Bitesize Catechism. But for right now we need only know that she was specially prepared to become the Mother of God the Son.
The Divinity of Jesus. This official decision of the Church did not stop the many questions and ponderings people had about Jesus, but it gave them a firm direction and helped those who accepted this teaching to not fall into theological error which we call heresy (although some indeed did so anyway). And really it is a question that can never ever be truly answered because the Incarnation is an utter mystery. No one (except Jesus) knows what it's like, what it means, to be both God and Human at the same time. The best we Christians can do is say "Yes, Jesus is fully divine" and then leave it at that. Sure, you will find preachers who talk as if they seem to know or authors of devotional books who claim to know. But they are simply offering personal reflections at best or misleading people at worst. We just simply do not have the answers and God has not seen fit to reveal them to us.
The Humanity of Jesus. It is so much easier for us to wrap our minds around Jesus the Man than Jesus the God because we all know from lived experience what it means to be human. But sometimes when we ponder the humanity of Jesus, we might tend to think that he had his faults and failings, but this would not be true in the moral or sinful sense. Yes, he did embrace a wounded humanity that got sick, suffered and became susceptible to death. But these things are not sins. They are simply human vulnerabilities. Yet he could be and was terribly tempted but never gave in to sin. Again, this is a mystery because we do not know what it means, what it is like, to be both divine and human at the same time. But it IS extremely important to know, for the sake of our topic this week, that Jesus took on and lived in all reality a true and full fallen human nature. Otherwise, he would have just been a "pretend man" and we would not be redeemed!
Face of Jesus Digitally Reconstructed from Shroud of Turin
Putting it all Together. The reason Jesus became man without giving up his divinity was so that he could offer to God perfect love and perfect obedience from a true human being to make up for Adam and Eve's insult and sin. In other words, Jesus as the God-Man could offer the all-holy infinite God an all-holy infinite truly human apology for the ancient original sin. Do you see how that all fits together? It's genius! Only God could think such a thing up! Only God could actually pull it off! And only God did!
DOGGIE BAG: Here are a few things to take away from our study for spiritual snacking throughout the day.
Contemporary Quote: “In a garden long ago, the two majestic beings God had created used their capacities for purposes other than reflecting the goodness of their Creator. Adam and Eve commandeered their design to worship themselves instead of God. Their children and grandchildren have been doing the same ever since.” (Jeremy Pierre, author and Baptist pastor)
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