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PROCLAMATION OF JESUS AS THE UNIVERSAL SAVIOUR PRESUPPOSES THAT WE RECOGNISE HIM AS T - stephenkhoo - 04-10-2015 12:08 PM
PROCLAMATION OF JESUS AS THE UNIVERSAL SAVIOUR PRESUPPOSES THAT WE RECOGNISE HIM AS THE RISEN LORD
SCRIPTURE READINGS: ACTS 4:1-12; JN 21-14
Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit declared to the rulers, elders and scribes of Jerusalem saying, “For all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.” In saying this, Peter was speaking about the universal significance of Jesus for the world and His uniqueness as Saviour and Lord.
Today, many are irked at this proclamation of Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Christians are accused of being triumphalistic and arrogant in confessing and declaring that Jesus is the Only Saviour and Lord of the World. As a result, quite often, in trying to preserve unity with other religions, there is a tendency for some Catholics to fight shy of proclaiming this truth about Jesus. This is true for those who are involved in inter-religious dialogue. In trying to appease the sensitivity of our Christian claim, we tell others that Jesus was only a great man or prophet like the founders of other religions. By so doing, we have compromised the fundamental proclamation of Jesus as Lord, Saviour and God.
In contrast, we see Peter and John courageously and boldly proclaiming Him as such. Pope John Paul II in the encyclical, the Church in Asia insisted that our proclamation is “prompted not by sectarian impulse nor the spirit of proselytism nor any sense of superiority. The Church evangelizes in obedience to Christ’s command, in the knowledge that every person has the right to hear the Good News of the God who reveals and gives himself in Christ. To bear witness to Jesus Christ is the supreme service which the Church can offer to the peoples of Asia, for it responds to their profound longing for the Absolute, and it unveils the truths and values which will ensure their integral human development.”
Indeed, he further wrote: “Proclamation which respects the rights of consciences does not violate freedom, since faith always demands a free response on the part of the individual. Respect, however, does not eliminate the need for the explicit proclamation of the Gospel in its fullness.” Thus Pope Paul VI explicitly wrote that “there is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the Kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, are not proclaimed”.
What is the basis, then, for the early Church and for the Church of today to continue to proclaim without compromise, the truth about Jesus as the Lord and Saviour, the Way, the Truth and the Life for all men? In order to understand why the Church could not speak less than what we believe, we must understand how the apostles came to recognize Jesus as the only Lord and Saviour of humankind.
In the first place, we must recognize that the disciples throughout the ministry of Jesus always saw Him as someone unique and special. In His ministry, Jesus spoke and conducted Himself as One who represented God. He spoke with authority and as one having the last word. Instead of citing from the Torah as others would do, He would say to them, “It was said of old but now I say to you.” He spoke of His unique relationship with the Father whom He addressed as Abba Father, “my Father.”
He behaved as one who took the place of God, not just in His preaching but in His actions as well. He ate and drank with sinners, which is the expression of reconciliation of sinners with God. He forgave sinners. He claimed to be doing the Father’s will and spoke only what the Father had said to Him. He identified Himself so closely with the Kingdom of God. He performed miracles as signs of the arrival of the Kingdom of God in Him and in the world.
In spite of all these, it did not justify the early disciples of Jesus calling Him, Saviour. Something else was needed. Ironically, it was the tragedy of the cross. For the humiliating and scandalous death of Jesus on the cross had put into question all the claims that Jesus made about Himself. In being condemned as a criminal and crucified shamefully on the cross, it appeared that God was not on His side.
Thanks be to God who revealed His fidelity to Jesus by raising Him from the dead, Jesus was vindicated by His Father! As St Peter under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit testified, “If you are questioning us today about an act of kindness to a cripple, and asking us how he was healed, then I am glad to tell you all, and would indeed be glad to tell the whole people of Israel, that it was by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the one you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by this name and by no other that this man is able to stand up perfectly healthy, here in your presence today.”
Clearly, for Peter and John, the sign of Jesus’ resurrection was that the healing took place through the invocation of the name of Jesus. Peter and John did not claim any credit for healing the cripple. They knew that it was not through their own powers but by the power of the Risen Lord in His Spirit. This explains why Peter and John could not stop “teaching the people the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead by proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus” even when arrested.
But why could they not simply proclaim that He is risen without adding that “For all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.”? Truly, the world would have no problems with us if only we say that Jesus is a good man like all great men. Why is the Church so insistent that He is the Only Saviour of the World? Why can’t we compromise for the sake of unity and harmony among all religions?
The truth is that we cannot. We cannot proclaim less than what we know and believe. To do so is to deceive others because we know that Jesus is more than a good man because He is God Himself. Half-truth is as good as a lie. Charity demands that we speak the truth. There can be no charity without truth. Of course, truth must be proclaimed with charity and sensitivity.
The point is that for Jesus to implicitly claim Himself to be God and who acted like God when He was on earth, and having been raised by the Father from the dead, it clearly means that God the Father has identified Himself with the cause and the person of Jesus. Who then could He be? Jesus is seen first and foremost by the early Christians as the Lord in the sense that God has always acted in and through Jesus. But it was also equally important to go further to maintain that if Jesus exercised all the authority of God in the world, then it implies that He shares in the nature of God. In saying this, therefore, Jesus is not only Lord but also God.
Indeed, the resurrection is the confirmation of what Jesus was before Easter. History is the locus in which the Divine Sonship of Jesus was manifested, proven and realized. He was always God from the very beginning, but the realization of His divinity only became clear upon His death and resurrection when the early Christians came to understand all His actions in the light of the resurrection. His history and fate are the history of His being. Thus, the resurrection of Jesus confirms His pre-Easter claims of identification with the Father. In other words, what He did confirms what He is and what He is, confirms all that He did. In this way, functional Christology is the realization and expression of ontological Christology. Here we see the unity of being and mission existing side by side in Jesus.
In the final analysis, the recognition of the universal significance of Jesus as Lord and Saviour presupposes our encounter with the Risen Lord. We can never personally arrive at this conviction of Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour of the World unless, like Peter and the apostles, we could also say, “It is the Lord.”
Faith in the Risen Lord takes time, as was the case for the apostles in recognizing the presence of the Risen Lord. Peter who had earlier denied Jesus three times was still lacking faith in the Risen Lord. Peter needed to be healed of his psychological blocks before he could be open to the Risen Lord. For this reason, the Lord made known to him His forgiveness by repeating the same encounter that Peter had with Jesus at the beginning of His ministry. Not surprisingly, it was John the beloved disciple of the Lord who knew the Lord so well that he could recognize Him almost instantly. In inviting them to a meal with Him, the reconciliation and healing process helped them to recognize His Risen presence in their midst.
With the recognition of His Risen presence, the apostles are reminded to go out to the world to bring others to share in the Good News of salvation by confessing Him as the One appointed by God to be the Christ and the Saviour. With the commissioning, there is also the promise of the success of the missionary task entrusted to them. We are told that they caught 153 fishes and the net was almost at breaking point. Yes, the Church is called to gather people of all nations and the Church is meant for the service of humankind. We can be confident of the Lord’s assistance in this work of proclamation. We only need to be obedient to His voice as Peter was in casting out the net. If we rely not on our own strength but in the power of the Risen Lord, we too can be fruitful in our apostolate.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh