Jesus Christ

Christ is not just some great man or other with a significant religious experience; he is God, God who became man to establish a bridge between man and God and so that many may become truly himself. Anyone who sees Christ only as a great religious person is not truly seeing him. The path from Christ and to Christ has to arrive at the point at which the Gospel of Mark ends up, at the confession of the Roman centurion before the Crucified One: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (15:39). It has to arrive at the point where the Gospel of John ends up, in the confession of Thomas: “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). It has to stride along the great arch that the Gospel of Matthew sets up from the Annunciation story to the missionary speech of the Risen One. In the story of the Annunciation, Jesus is heralded as the “God with us” (1:23). And the final saying in the Gospel takes up this message: “Behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (28:20). In order to know Christ, we have to join in following the path along which the Gospel leads us.