Jesus Christ: History and Testimony
In the previous text, we saw that the Church was born from an encounter. Before becoming an institution, it was a small group of men and women who crossed paths with Jesus of Nazareth. In this new section of our formation, we will explore the mystery surrounding the person of Jesus and gain a better understanding of who he was. More than just the founder of Christianity, Christ is the very content of the faith.
Few figures in history are as well known, and perhaps none is as misunderstood. Over the centuries, Jesus has been portrayed as a moral teacher, a sage among sages, a political revolutionary, or a miracle-worker with extraordinary powers. Each of these interpretations is based on a fragment of truth, but none captures the whole truth. All draw from the same source: the testimony of the Gospels. It is to this source that we should turn.
Three of these four books record that, even in his own time, opinions about Jesus were diverse. Some regarded him as a new prophet; others likened him to the great figures of Israel’s history. Just as today, each person understood him based on what they already knew. His disciples went further and recognized him as the “Christ”—a familiar expression, but one that is not always well understood. Many mistake it for a surname when, in fact, it is a title.
The word “Christ” comes from the Greek Χριστός (Christós), a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (mashiach), from which “Messiah” also derives. All three terms mean the same thing: “the anointed one.” In Israel, anointing with oil was a sacred act: it designated someone chosen by God for a mission. This is how kings, such as Saul and David, and priests, such as Aaron, were consecrated. Over time, the people came to expect a Messiah—a definitive anointed one, a descendant of David—who would restore the kingdom of Israel. In Jesus’s time, under Roman rule, this hope was intense and had political overtones: a liberating king was awaited. To recognize Jesus as the Christ was to see in him the fulfillment of that promise. But he fulfilled it in a way no one expected.
His journey began far from Jerusalem, in Galilee, a region on the margins of the Jewish world of his time. There, Jesus lived as a rabbi—that is, an itinerant teacher: he called fishermen away from their nets and gathered disciples around him, mostly simple men, laborers, and those with little formal education. He taught the Gospel—from the Greek εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion), “good news”—and confirmed his words with deeds. Many of these deeds echoed ancient prophecies: the blind regaining their sight, the lame walking again, the sick being healed. To those who witnessed them, these were signs that the messianic age had arrived and that Rome would finally be defeated. Yet Jesus did not fit what was expected of the Anointed One.
Instead of keeping his distance from those whom religion and society excluded, he reached out to them. He called Matthew, a tax collector viewed as a collaborator with the oppressors, and stayed at the home of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector. He touched a leper—whom the law required to be kept at a distance—and healed ten others. By a well, he spoke with a Samaritan woman who was ostracized for three reasons: because she was a woman, because she was a Samaritan, and because of her life story—in an era when only a husband could dissolve a marriage, she had had five husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband. In the eyes of the most orthodox, that teacher associated with those he should not.
His gaze also lingered, above all, on the most vulnerable— those for whom the Law and the Prophets demanded special care. In Nain, he was moved by a widow who had just lost her only son and, with him, all her support. He touched the young man’s coffin—a gesture the law associated with impurity. In the temple, while the rich were making large offerings, he praised the poor widow who had given everything she had. By the roadside, he stopped before Bartimaeus, the blind man who was begging and whom many told to be quiet. Not even the Sabbath, the sacred day of rest, prevented him from caring for the sick. While his gaze sought out the vulnerable, other eyes watched him. Standing before them, he asked whether it was permissible, on that day, to save a life or to let it be lost. No one answered.
It was a silence heavy with indignation, resentment, and fear. On the other hand, the passion with which Jesus taught and acted captivated hearts: crowds left their villages to hear him, and many gave up everything to follow him. The very fervor that drew the humble unsettled the powerful. In Jesus’s presence, no one remained indifferent. When he drove the merchants out of the temple, his disciples recalled an ancient psalm: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The authorities began to fear him, precisely because the people were enchanted by his teaching. His criticism of hypocrisy and the way he spoke of God—whom he called Father—were taken as an affront. He had become an intractable problem, and eliminating him seemed the most convenient solution.
What followed is history: Jesus was betrayed, tortured, and crucified. However, in this process, there is a decisive and lesser-known moment. Before the religious court in Jerusalem, the high priest asked him if he was the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus replied, “I am.” To his judges, this was blasphemy: a man was making himself equal to God. Before Pilate, the charge took on a different form: the one who claimed to be a king was defying Caesar’s authority. The penalty for this was the cross—a death that Rome reserved for slaves and enemies of the state. Above his head, an inscription bore the sentence: “The King of the Jews.” He was stripped before the crowd, subjected to mockery and spitting, and counted among criminals.
In this dishonor, however, a radical reversal takes place. Stripped of everything, Jesus gives himself entirely. Mocked, he asks the Father to forgive his tormentors. Crucified alongside a criminal, he promises him paradise. His arms, outstretched on the cross, hold the paradox that inspired a poet from the Brazilian state of Bahia to sing: they are open to receive us and nailed down so as not to punish us. What was a sign of defeat becomes a sign of love carried to the very end. That is why, in Holy Cross, we repeat our motto: Ave Crux, Spes Unica—Hail, O Cross, our only hope.
That afternoon, no one could see this. To the disciples, everything seemed over. Most fled, and with the crucified Master, the hope of a powerful Messiah who would liberate Israel by force also died. Few remained at the foot of the cross: some women, the youngest disciple, and Mary, the mother, who remained standing. Later, after everything had been accomplished, two men who until then had approached him in secret—Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus—lost their fear of revealing themselves: Joseph asked Pilate for the body, and the two ensured that Jesus received a dignified burial. Darkness and silence seemed to mark the end of his story.
On the third day, at sunrise, some of those women went to his tomb to anoint the body with perfumes. They wanted to pay a final tribute to the Master. They found the tomb empty and heard that they should not seek among the dead the one who was alive. They ran to tell the apostles. Their testimony, however, carried little weight: in those days, a woman’s word was not even accepted in Jewish courts. The apostles themselves, at first, dismissed the account as delusion. Yet it was to these women that God entrusted the decisive news. Once again, the logic of power was turned on its head.
For centuries, Israel had awaited a Messiah who would defeat its enemies by force. In the empty tomb, the Anointed One defeated the adversary that no army could ever defeat: death, the greatest and most feared enemy of the human condition. Paul, who had once persecuted the followers of Jesus, would go on to challenge it: “O death, where is your victory? Where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55). Without the resurrection, there would be no Christianity. Without it, the transformation of the apostles cannot be explained either: men who had fled in terror began to proclaim Jesus openly and, for that reason, faced persecution and violent deaths. It is from this proclamation that the Church is born.
Thus, the rabbi from Galilee, condemned as a blasphemer and an enemy of the state, is recognized by faith as the living Christ, the Son of God who conquered death. In him, the Church has its origin and its center, and every form of education that calls itself Catholic has its standard. The Second Vatican Council expresses this precisely: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light” (Gaudium et Spes, 22). To educate hearts and minds, therefore, is to lead each person to an encounter with the One who reveals to them who they are.
Murilo Daniel Botelho Gomes
Director of Mission Front
