The face of the Lord

July 2008

For spiritual reading and during my studies for the priesthood I have read many books about Jesus and the Bible—hundreds of them. But I have never read anything quite like Pope Benedict’s recent book, Jesus of Nazareth. As he says, this is his “personal search for the face of the Lord.”

The book is meant for the general public and is easy to read. It is not burdened with footnotes and lots of scholarly apparatus. The tone is very much like his weekly homilies in St. Peter’s in Rome. He takes a passage from the Bible and explains it in a way that all can understand and apply to their own lives. Perhaps this is one reason why the crowds at the weekly audiences in St. Peter’s Square have doubled to about fifty thousand every Wednesday. The last time I was there I noticed how Pope Benedict speaks to the heart of each person present and how all listen with rapt attention.

The book is not intended to be a “life” of Christ in the sense of a biography. Benedict does not try to tell the whole story of Jesus from conception to glorification. What he does is select some words and deeds of Jesus, situate them, explain them and apply them to the life of faith of the Catholic Christian. The main areas he covers are the following: the baptism of Jesus; the temptation in the wilderness; the Sermon on the Mount; the Lord’s Prayer; the message of the parables; themes in St. John’s Gospel such as water, bread and the shepherd; Peter’s confession and the transfiguration on Mount Tabor; and finally, three titles that declare his identity—Son of Man, Son and “I Am.”

The book presents the Pope’s search for the identity of Jesus Christ. It is not a scholarly book, but it is based on an immense wealth of scholarship. After all, the Pope taught theology for fifty years and is the author of scores of books—most of which are now available in English translation. He is familiar with the many theories about Jesus that have been propounded by Scripture scholars over the past two hundred years, especially those published by German, French and English scholars.

Much of what the Pope says in this book is a refutation of theories proposed about the supposed difference between the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith.” Most of these theories are based on the (false) assumption that the four canonical Gospels are not authentic history, but creations of various “communities” in the second century. Some of them also assume that miracles cannot happen. Therefore, in their view, all the accounts of miracles in the Gospels performed by Jesus did not really happen; so they are “myths” created after Jesus’ death and attributed to him in order to enhance his claim to be the “Son of God.” As is well known, this type of exegesis, or interpretation, of the Bible had the result of destroying the faith of many priests and nuns during the 1970s and 1980s. For if Jesus is just a man and not God, why bother with him? Why follow him and base one’s whole life on him?

Jesus of Nazareth is refreshing because Benedict affirms, along with the constant tradition of the Church, the historical validity and truthfulness of the Gospels (see Dei Verbum, #19). He sees and affirms the divinity of Jesus shining through his words and deeds. He is the Son of God and he came into this world to reveal to us the Father and to save us from our sins.

Here is the way Pope Benedict puts it on page 44: “What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: He has brought God.” And we can see God in the face of Jesus (see John 14:9). That is a brief summary of the whole book.

Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor