IS THERE AN AUSTRALIAN PORTRAIT OF JESUS? or 'Who do you say I am?'
cf also THINK
,
Work,
Response,
,
Aboriginals
1 Aboriginals 2, and
'Jesus',
Jesus b,
Jesus c
The Tradition
- '...But who do you say I am?' (Matthew's gospel Ch 16).
- The tradition offers us a kaleidoscope of images. We listed a whole lot of them
one day: teacher, ruler, king, saviour - liberator, shepherd (adolescent Jesus with sheep
over his shoulders as well as the 'Good Shepherd imagined as older), Son of Man, Son of
David, :rince of Peace, The Way, Truth and Life, the Bread of Life.....
- Culture - in recent years the Catholic Tradition has 'discovered' the importance of
culture in its writing. e.g. Vatican II, Chapter II of Gaudium et Spes, 'The proper
development of culture': "It is a fact bearing on the very person of man that he can
come to an authentic and full humanity only through culture, that is, through the
cultivation of natural goods and values".
- When Jesus is named (Lord, King, Teacher, Hope, Living Water, Logos....) what is
happening in the naming process? The name has to carry some human concern e.g. Son
of God carries our deep interest in the question of divinity and is there a God? And
we trust that the Jesus so named makes those concerns 'obedient' to the reality that he
knows.
- Interpretations of Jesus began in the very culture in which he grew up, lived and
worked. The first eye-witnesses are already interpreting him. We can only be
aware of this fact; we do not have the time to steep ourselves in scriptural study that
might reveal the 'real' Jesus.
INSPIRATION
RETURN
