Jesus of Nazareth: up close and personal
THIS WEEK’S WINNER
MANILA, Philippines - Gabriel Hidalgo Bordado is now on his third term as vice mayor of Naga City in Bicol. He spearheads a program aimed at promoting reading as a tool for self-improvement and for securing the future of the nation.
As a politician, I have this nagging fear of being dragged into a controversy or a scandal not of my own making. I even catastrophize, agonizing over the possible dire consequences it would have on my career and my family. But the advice given by Fr. Ambrose, my confessor and head of the Missionaries of the Poor in the Philippines, stunned me. He gently reminded me that even Jesus, who preached about love, humility and compassion (in direct contrast to my political acts of hate, pride and ruthlessness ) was scorned, spat upon, humiliated, subjected to the cruellest and most inhuman form of punishment, and eventually murdered on a wooden cross.
Yes, indeed, how could I ever miss that point? It’s in our creed, which I recite every day — but rather mechanically on most occasions. Still, it boggles the mind to bridge the chasms in logic and to address the glaring contradictions in what philosophers termed as the matrix of rationalization. For someone like me baptized under Catholic rites and claiming to be a Christian, I simply lump such incomprehensibles under the all-embracing category “mystery” and let faith, or what is left of it, handle the rest.
Fr. Ambrose, however, did prick my curiosity. I soon became interested in the historical and “personal” Jesus rather than on the concepts and precepts imposed on me by my religion. From my cartilla days in a ramshackled nipa house in Calabanga, Camarines Sur, to my high school years at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Naga, I stuck to the stereotype images of Jesus Christ. I never dared question what struck me then as odd or explore possibilities that ran counter to what was being taught to me in my religion classes for fear of heavenly reprisals — or below average grades! In college, at UP-Los Baños, I kept the faith, so to speak, notwithstanding the ideological assaults (e.g. religion being bandied as the opiate of the masses) from the activist groups in the aftermath of the First Quarter Storm. Still, Jesus sometimes loomed as a distant figure, a deity to be worshipped with formulaic prayers, particularly during times of crisis and distress. The scheme of things hasn’t changed much even at this stage of my life. (But I must admit that, more often than not, my prayers are answered!)
I found it quite serendipitous that I should come across a book entitled The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey. It is a well-researched tome, drawing extensively from the Christian Bible, the Koran and the Torah, among others, as well as from studies conducted by renowned scholars from prestigious universities and educational centers throughout the world. It even quoted the works of Russian literary heavyweights Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy.
Yancey divides the book into three major parts: who Jesus was, why He came, and what He left behind. One can’t help but be fascinated as Yancey situates Jesus in the context of 1st-century Palestine, which was then under Roman rule: born in an animal sty in Bethlehem and raised in the backwaters of nondescript Nazareth in Galilee (ancient Palestine’s most impoverished province), the entry of Jesus into our world was pathetically understated, considering his supposedly divine lineage. And there was the hint of a scandal.
At the vortex of this seeming infamy were Mary, her spouse Joseph, and Jesus himself. Yet, the teenaged Mary impressed the world with the way she handled the complicated situation.
According to Yancey, “The Virgin Mary, though whose parenthood was unplanned, had a different response. She heard the angel out, pondered the repercussions, and replied, ‘I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.’ Often a work of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, and Mary embraced both. She was the first person to accept Jesus on his own terms, regardless of the personal cost.”
Yancey noted that up to now, nobody actually knows how Jesus looks like. Based on empirical data, he deduced that “the first semi-realistic portraits of Jesus did not come until the fifth century and these were pure speculations; until then the Greeks depicted Him as a young, beardless figure resembling the god Apollo.” But quoting the prophet Isaiah, Yancey writes, “We cannot point to His beauty or majesty or anything else in his appearance to explain His attraction. The key lies elsewhere.”
Jesus attracted thousands of followers in his time, from the wealthy to the destitute, from the saintly to the hypocrites and sinners. But his heart was always with the weak and the oppressed. Yancey credited Jesus for taking the cudgels for women — certainly a revolutionary move then as now, stating that “indeed, for women and other oppressed people, Jesus turned upside down the accepted wisdom of the day.”
Yes, Jesus literally and figuratively turned the world upside down with His unorthodox teachings (e.g. the Beatitudes) and actions, eventually leading to His ignominious execution on the cross. And throughout His 33 years of human existence, He was hounded by rejection.
“Jesus’ life was defined by rejection. His neighbors laughed at him, His family questioned His sanity, His closest friends betrayed Him, and His countrymen traded His life for that of a terrorist,” Yancey wryly observes, sifting facts from mere trivia. Yet, strange indeed are the ways of God. There was the Resurrection, which up to now nobody can refute with inconvertible evidence and which forms the bedrock of our faith. And the cross (the lethal injection room in modern lingo) became the symbol of that faith, a grisly reminder of God’s unconditional love and mercy. For his part, Jesus the humble God— man from Nazareth — is the anchor of a religion which has been going strong for more than two millennia.
As for the skeptics and unbelievers, Dostoevsky had this to say: “Faith does not spring from the miracle, but the miracle from faith.” For a sinful, grovelling politician like me, no further assurance is needed — at least, for now.
