Blog # 390 Jesus, Human and Divine

Blog  # 390   Jesus, Human and Divine

                 In the Eternal Word of God Incarnate, and Jesus, the son of Mary, we have the same person.  The  Word did not cease to be divine in coming among us.  Yet in order to be really one of us He had to be limited, as we are, by time and all the human limitations that are ours. 

                  He had to learn how, in His own time and place, in His own limited human way, to express His infinite eternal divine love for the Father and for all creation.  He had to be satisfied, for the time being, to experience, develop, and express this divine love in human words thoughts and actions just as we do.

                   He had to pray. In His limited short-lived experience among us He had to praise and thank the Father for a very small part of all He knew God had done. Maybe it was something like our own experience of thanking God for all the stars we see, knowing all the while there are far more we do not see.

                  We believe that all Jesus was sent to do was done not only for the Father's glory but for us.  In view of this we sometimes tend to see and experience the life of Jesus as an attempt on His part to set a pace, as it were, to put some footprints down for us to follow.  Abraham, Moses, St. Paul, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Terese of Calcutta, John Paul II, and our Patron Saints were sent for this. 
Jesus was sent for more.

                    The Word came from Heaven and was known as Jesus.  Jesus  lived among us so that we might 'go' to Heaven living in Him!  This gift, referred to as Sanctifying Grace, makes us holy, or like to God through sharing God's life in Jesus. This is what Jesus was trying to explain to Nicodemus when He spoke to him about being "born from above", and how necessary this was for anyone to "see", which in this instance means know or experience the Kingdom of God.  (Jn. 3:3).

                    Down through the ages back to the very beginning of our story, the Church has taken these words of Jesus at face value.  As with ST. Paul, we are a "new creation" in Jesus through faith and Baptism. Jesus did not merely go before us in a previous moment of history.  He lives in us today. He did not merely live for us as a role model but shares with  us by faith His very life.  "... and the life I live now is not my own alone; Christ is living in me."  (Gal 2:20; Jn. 14:23; 15: 1 - 5).

                    Our faith is not like a house in which we live but more like a medicine which heals us and food that gives us life.  God's divine love is to be shared with us as it was lived in Jesus. He has gone to prepare a place for those who believe and live the Father's will so that where Jesus is they might be, forever.  (Jn. 14: 2,3).