Jesus lived a fully human life while also being divine. He experienced human joys and sorrows to sanctify human experiences. His life fulfilled Jewish expectations of the Messiah by obeying Jewish law and traditions. Jesus brought unity among divided groups in Israel through his teachings of love and by healing the sick of all backgrounds. The Mass allows Christians today to access the salvation won on the cross through the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, which has its roots in the Jewish Passover tradition.

1. JESUS: HUMAN &
DIVINE
The Human Jesus Revealing the Divine
Person

2. Why Become Human?
 The human experiences of Jesus, of both joy and extreme sorrow, sanctify
= to make holy (whole) our own human experiences.
 Jesus reveals that every human experience can be a means of holiness
and spiritual growth. Our experiences and relationships allow us to grow as
persons (another way of saying this is that we become sanctified).
 Many people simplify Jesus’ life (He was born and then there was some
stuff in the middle but then He died and rose) … THE STUFF IN THE
MIDDLE (HIS EXPERIENCES) SHOW A JOYFUL JESUS! Don’t miss that!
His life events ought to be an example for us!
 This human Jesus, Who experienced everything that we experience, also
took onto Himself the faith of the Jewish people.
 Jesus subjected Himself under the Law of Moses and revealed the
importance of obedience.
 He does this in several ways:
 His parents have Him circumcised according to the Law of Moses (Lk. 2:21).
 He is consecrated to God in the Temple according to the Law, “Consecrate to Me
[the Lord] every first-born” (Ex. 13:22).
 He celebrates the Jewish religious holidays of Passover, Tabernacles, and
Hanukkah by fulfilling the Law and traveling to Jerusalem to properly celebrate by
visiting and offering prayers in the Temple. (See Jn.2:13, 7:2, 10:22)
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3. The Jewish Jesus
• We often forget that Jesus meant for
the Jewish faith to be the roots of
Catholicism.
• We cannot have a good
understanding of our faith without
also having a good understanding of
the Jewish faith.
• We also need to understand the
Jewish expectations of the Messiah
and how Jesus meets and exceeds
those expectations.
• The Jewish faith is built on two major
pillars: Monotheism & Scripture
(including the Law and the
Prophets).
• Jesus certainly preached
Monotheism, when asked about the
• Jesus also showed His love for Scripture
(Lk. 14:16-22) and His respect for the
Law/Torah, “I have come not to abolish
them (the Law and the Prophets) but to
fulfill them” (Mt. 5:17).
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
One and you shall love the Lord your God …”

4. The Jewish Messiah
 If Christianity is built upon Judaism we need to ask what the Jews during
the time of Jesus were expecting the Messiah to be?
 There were three different expectations for the Messiah within Judaism in
the 1st century.
The New Moses
• Some among the Jews
were expecting the
Messiah to be a new
Moses for the people.
• They expected the
Messiah to renew and
keep the Law
• They thought it possible
that the Messiah may
lead them to a new
“Promised Land” where
they would regain the
freedom and blessings
of the 1st Promised
The King of the End
• Some Jews expected
the Messiah to usher in
the end of the world
and the establishment
of the new reign of God.
• Thus, the Jews
welcomed Jesus on
Palm Sunday, expecting
that He might be
ushering in God’s new
kingdom.
• His death on the Cross
brought an end to their
expectations., but the
Resurrection gave their
A Rebel King
• A minority party of the
Jews called the Zealots,
thought that the
Messiah was going to
be a political and
military leader who was
going to crush the
Romans and restore
the Kingdom of Israel to
the glory of the days of
David.
• Jesus rejects this
Messiahship because
He recognizes that to
change anything, one
must change hearts

5. Life in 1st Century Israel
• Israel in the 1st Century found itself
under Roman occupation.
• The Romans allowed local kings to
have some control over their territories
–the king of the Jews at this time was
Herod.
• The religious leaders of the Jews
during this time were split into two main
parties: the Pharisees and the
Sadducees.
• The Pharisees were a group of Jewish
leaders characterized by their strict
adherence to the Law.
• The Sadducees were characterized by
their commitment to the Temple.
• Jesus clashed with both groups: the
Pharisees over their hypocrisy and the

6. Tension Within
• During this time within the land of Israel
there existed a pluralistic society.
• Pluralism is characterized by the
presence of many different ethnic,
religious and cultural groups within a
country.
• This pluralism lead to tensions between
different groups and Jesus sought to
diffuse those tensions.
• There were obvious tensions between
the occupying Romans and the Jews –
so Jesus preaches “love your enemy”
(Mt. 5:44) and “blessed are the
peacemakers” (Mt. 5:9).
• There was also tension between the
Jews and the Samaritans, so Jesus goes
to Samaria and preaches salvation to the
“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth
…” Jn. 4:23.

7. Jesus as Healer
• Jesus spent much of His ministry
healing the divisions between peoples.
• He also focused on reaching out to
those whom society had overlooked,
like the sick, the poor, and women.
• Jesus heals the sick throughout His
ministry and His cures are
characterized by bringing instant relief
to the person.
• Jesus shows His solidarity with the
poor by being poor Himself and
encouraging generosity.
• Jesus treats women as just as in need
of God’s grace and forgiveness as
men.
• Jesus even reaches out to the enemies

8. Jesus the Unifier
• Jesus’ miracles and conversations, His
teachings and His prayers were all
aimed at unifying people.
• Jesus taught that, “So, shall there be
one shepherd and one flock”
(Jn.10:16) – a main focus of His life
and ministry was to draw all peoples to
Himself.
• In this way Jesus serves as the
fulfillment of the Old Testament image
of David – the King and unifier of
Israel.
• The unity which Jesus desired led Him
ultimately to the Cross to defeat sin –
which was the greatest obstacle to
unity.

9. Redemption
• Throughout Church history there developed many
ways of discussing how we were saved by Christ:
• Recapitulation – this theology sees Christ’s
headship over a new creation as the pinnacle of
Jesus’ work. The first Adam is representative of
hostility and separation between God and man.
But Jesus, as the New Adam, brings about a
reconciliation and union between God and man.
• Restoration – Original sin and all human sin
made humanity the possession of the Devil;
Jesus buys us back from the Devil through His
sacrifice on the Cross.
• Debt and Satisfaction – the injustice of sin
required someone to pay the debt of sin. No
mere human being could satisfy the debt
because how could we settle an infinite debt?
God becomes man to satisfy our debt as God

10. The Mass
• The issue with the Cross is how do we, who live
2000 years after Christ, access the salvation
won for us on that Good Friday?
• We do so through the sacraments but most
centrally through the Mass.
• The Mass is the re-presentation of Christ’s
sacrifice on Calvary wherein we access and
receive the grace of the Cross in His Body and
Blood – His very Divine Life.
• But, how does this happen? We need to
remember that God and ourselves work on two
different planes of existence:
God
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11. The Mass & Passover – The Jewish
Roots of the Eucharist
 The Mass is directly influenced by Old Testament Jewish Temple practice
and by the Jewish feast of Passover. Let’s look at the parallels:
• Passover was eaten the day before Israel was
delivered from slavery to freedom.
• The Israelites were saved from the angel of death
by sprinkling the blood of the lamb on their
doorposts.
• The Passover lamb was eaten without breaking
any of its bones.
• God commands that the Jews keep the Passover
• The Last Supper was eaten the day before
Christ died on the Cross to save us from the
slavery of sin and death.
• We were saved through the blood of the “Lamb
of God” which was shed upon the wood of the
Cross.
• While Christ was on the Cross not one of His
bones were broken.
• We have Holy Mass every day as a memorial

12. Hypostatic Union
 We have seen the real and dynamic results of the human/Divine
union of God and man in the Person of Christ. We have seen this
in: Jesus’ common human experience with us, His work of
overcome tension within Israel and the world, His passion and
death, His awesome gift of the Eucharist, etc.
 All of these “results” point to God’s deep desire to be one with
mankind – this is the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union
refers specifically to the union of the Divine and human natures of
Jesus within the one Person of Christ.
 But, everything that Jesus does affirms His desire to be with us! His
Incarnation was the “watershed” event but His life testifies to His
desire for unity with mankind, His death on the Cross certainly
showed His brotherhood with us, His rule in Heaven now in and
through the Church shows His desire for unity, and His promise of a
united New Heaven and New Earth (Rev. 21:1) is the ultimate
promise and goal of Christianity.

13. God is With Us!
• The humanity of Jesus reveals the great
fulfillment of Isaiah's prophesy that the
Messiah would be “Emmanuel” – “God
is with us!”
• This prophesy was no idealistic or poetic
prophesy – God is really with us, in His
assumed humanity, in His experience, in
His Divine/human rule over creation
through the Church, and in His future
and final rule in the New Creation.
• Jesus is always in the midst of us, in the
middle of where we are and what we
are doing and if we live life with this
important truth always in mind, we will
never stray too far from Him.