View out of Fingal's Cave, Island of Staffa, Scotland

This article appears on the Missional Wisdom Foundation blog.

What is Christ?

Jesus lived two thousand years ago and was called Christ. So, it seems clear that we could infer things about Christ from Jesus.

Who was Jesus without the trappings of doctrine attached? Jesus spent a lot of time walking, eating, talking, and teaching. Jesus also offered healing and forgiveness to those who came to him. Jesus was a Jewish teacher who lived and preached a message that was so radical that he was, ultimately, killed to try to stop it. History does not give us much more than that.

The blood of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke begin with the blood-line of Jesus. Matthew ties Jesus to Judaism and Luke ties Jesus to Adam—thereby tying Jesus to all of humanity. The Gospels wanted the story to readJesus was human. When we speak of incarnation, we speak of the birth of God as a boy. That is an impossible statement. How can anyone hope to understand the incarnation?

The blood of Jesus, his pulse, his respiration, his living blood, were an expression of the salvific acts of the Divine.