| | Sharing the Vision, | | Hope and Love of Jesus | | John Navone | | |  St John affirms the mystery which is at the heart of our Christian faith: the “love which the Father has lavished on us in letting us be called God’s children” (1 John 3:1), the love that takes flesh in Christ and the outpouring of his Spirit in the birth of the Church. This is the great mystery of the economy to which we are drawn and invited to contemplate as the source of our Christian life and identity. Only within the depths of this astonishing mystery of God’s life and gift can we live the authentic unity and rich plurality of the body of Christ’s vision, hope and love.
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Sharing God’s vision
“Where there is no vision, the people will perish.” So we read in the Book of Proverbs 29:18, and so our life in the community of Christian faith confirms. The vision that is called for is the vision of our Catholic faith, the depth-vision that enables us to face the vicissitudes of life, a vision that provides a sense of direction and a central thread to the meaning of our existence.
The evangelists presume the historicity of Jesus’ giving sight to the blind as part of his public ministry. They present their accounts of healing from blindness as symbolizing realities that go beyond the physical fact. Their accounts of his giving sight to the blind are a scriptural matrix for our appreciation of the basic faith-vision that Jesus communicates to all who confide in him. Jesus’ giving sight to the blind witnesses to his sharing his own vision, God’s vision, with all who welcome him.
Luke, for example, begins and concludes his two-volume work with Old Testament quotations and allusions, which implicitly equate response to the mystery of Jesus with seeing the salvation of God (Lk 2:29-32,3:6 and Acts 28:26-28). When Luke presents Jesus either as enabler or as object of physical seeing, he does so in a way that symbolizes both what the eye of faith sees in Jesus and how the life of faith acts upon that vision. Jesus is both the enabler and the object of the true faith-vision that he communicates. He enables our sharing the vision of his Father who beholds him as his beloved Son at both his baptism and transfiguration, with the implication that the faith-vision of the baptized transfigures their lives. In Acts (26:18), Luke’s second volume, the mission of the Christian community is described as a matter of opening eyes and turning them from darkness to light.
The Bible in its history and stories, its prayers and prophecies, can be considered as God’s attempt to share with us his vision, his way of seeing. What begins with Abraham and Moses, with Isaiah and Jeremiah in the Old Testament, reaches its high point in Jesus. God’s vision is fully enfleshed in Jesus of Nazareth. His faith-vision will always surpass our limited imaginations and half-generous hearts. However, our being Christians means following Jesus in the pilgrim journey of faith to his full vision to the Father. For he is the one who “leads us in our faith, and brings it to perfection” (Heb 12:2).
Christians have the privilege to share in, and the responsibility to hand on, the vision of God in Jesus Christ. The crucified and risen Christ has given us his Spirit to share with us his vision of God and the world. Jesus spoke parables to share with us his vision. He spoke from his unique vision of God as his Father. Jesus envisioned the nearness of the kingdom of God with an attitude of trust in the boundless love of God for all God’s people, a love offered to all who would turn to the Father in trust and repentance. Jesus shared and entrusted his vision of God and world to his disciples. He shared his vision of God in teaching his disciples to pray to God as Father, as he himself did. And he has given us his Holy Spirit to enable us to envision ourselves, our world and our God as he does. |
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Jesus Christ shares his vision of the Old Testament with his disciples. That he is the interpreter who unlocks its meaning is expressed in a marvellous way in the New Testament scene of the Transfiguration (Mt 17:1-8; Mk 9:2-8; Lk 9:28-36). Here, Jesus manifests his glory in the presence of the representatives of the Old Testament: Moses and Elijah, that is, the Law and the Prophets. And the text goes on to say how the Father asks us to see Jesus: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him” (Mk 9:7). That is, from now on we do not have to listen to and interpret the Old Testament without mediation and guidance, but rather we have to listen to what the Son says, to how he himself interprets or “sees” the Law and the Prophets through his person, work and teaching.
With William Lynch, S J (Images of Faith, pp. 5-8), we may regard faiths our deepest reality, our imaginative centre and constant way of envisioning the world and the divine at work in that world. This centre functions to unite memory, intellect, will and emotion in response to the revelation of the Triune God in our lives.
Sharing the Hope of Jesus
The Christian community of faith turns to Jesus for the Source and shape of our specifically Christian hope. Be reflecting on his attitude of hopeful trust in the Father and examining where that led him, we will gain some insight into our hope. If we take seriously that Jesus is the way to the Father, then his way, the way of hope, must also become our way. His hope becomes ours.
To speak of the hopes of Jesus might seem strange; for hope would seem to imply distance between the Father and his Son. How could Jesus be the Saviour, if he had to hope and struggle like us? These are complex questions; however, the beginnings of the answer must lie in the evidence from the New Testament and the tradition, which has always maintained, if not sufficiently emphasized, that Jesus is fully and truly human. Jesus is like us in all but sin (Heb 4:15).
That Matthew and Luke begin their stories of the Good News of Jesus with his birth indicates that, indeed, he is like us. He was born, grew, matured and was put to death in a particular place and time, in this case, the Jewish culture of Roman-occupied Palestine, 2000 years ago. These Jewish roots of Jesus provide the first and abiding insights into his hopes. He learned of the hopes, fears and struggles of the Jewish people. He knew their history beginning with Abraham, the history of their liberation under Moses. In turn, he hoped for God’s continued protection and liberation. Jesus shared the hope-filled vision of the prophets. With Isaiah, for example, he looked forward to a new heaven and a new earth.
In his preaching, this was expressed as the call to repentance and the acceptance of the kingdom or rule of God. Living in the light of the kingdom called for an attitude of trust in God, the God who took care of the birds of the sky and the flowers in the fields. Living in the kingdom involved prayer in the spirit of the Lord’s prayer to God who would provide his people with daily sustenance. Above all, it called for the attitude of trust, ‘Thy will be done,” which Jesus himself was to exemplify in his life and which would be put to the test in the agony in the garden.
1n spite of the growing resistance and opposition to his message of the kingdom, Jesus, in Luke’s view, set his face toward Jerusalem. He faced the struggle not with blind obedience to a predetermined plan, but with hope and trust. But if Jesus had hoped alone, his life and message would have died with him. Thus, he tried to share his hope-filled vision of the kingdom with apostles and disciples. Jesus had to hope not only in his Father, but also in his disciples. This becomes especially clear in the case of Peter, the bold and impetuous leader of the apostles. He was ...Contd. | | |
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