Psychologies Magazine , December 2001.
Two thousand years ago, a man was born in a small town in Palestine who would change the destiny of a large part of humanity. What do we know about this Jew named Jesus, or Yeshua in Hebrew? From sources outside Christianity, very little. Only that he was born around four years before our era—that is, before Jesus Christ, a dating error dating back to the Middle Ages!—and died around thirty years later, crucified on the orders of the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate. The essentials of his life and his message have been transmitted to us mainly through four accounts, the Gospels. According to them, Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, led a hidden life in Nazareth and only taught during the last three years of his life. Sometimes contradictory—which, paradoxically, validates their authenticity—these accounts remain vague about his true identity. For many, this religious reformer was the messiah awaited by the Jews as liberator from the Roman oppressor. He called himself "son of man" and "son of God," the latter designation earning him the hatred of the religious authorities and his death sentence. According to the apostles, his body disappeared three days after his burial, and he himself appeared many times, resurrected from the dead.
THE FIVE KEYS TO HIS MESSAGE
1 – No man is contemptible
Although a practicing Jew, Jesus mixes with pagans, outcasts, and the rabble, refusing to make distinctions between men or to demonize anyone, which scandalizes the religiously inclined. To the moralists who are offended to see him grant forgiveness to those who transgress the law, he reminds them that it is precisely sinners who need him. To the hypocritical crowd who wants to stone a woman caught in the act of adultery, he retorts: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” (John 8:7) And the narrator adds humorously: “At these words, they withdrew one by one, beginning with the oldest.”
2 – We have no need for religions to meet God
Jesus advocates a direct relationship between man and God and relativizes the role of mediations. A subversive idea for religious institutions. Thus, to a Sam Maritain (a dissident sect of Judaism) who is surprised: “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that one must worship in Jerusalem,” Jesus replies: “The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem […] The hour is coming when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:19-24)
3 – God is love
Faced with the ambiguous faces of a God who sometimes appears as a tyrant or an implacable judge, Jesus affirms that he is love, justice, holiness, light and compassion, and calls him “our Father”. All Christian ethics are based on this belief in his love: “Show yourselves merciful as your Father is merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned; forgive and it will be forgiven you; give and it will be given to you.” (Luke, 6-36-38.)
4 – Death is not an end
The Jewish schools were divided on the belief in the survival of the soul after death. Jesus, for his part, is categorical: death is only a passage, there is another life after it. He promises eternal happiness to the humble, the pure of heart, the merciful, the peacemakers, the afflicted, and those persecuted by the law (Matthew 5:3-10). He also presents himself as the savior, the one who came to give the keys to eternal life to “all men of good will.”
5 – Everyone will be judged on the love they have given
It is therefore neither ritual nor faith alone that matters, but love for one's neighbor. Jesus evokes what he will say on the day of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25): “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; naked and you clothed me; sick and you visited me; in prison and you came to me.” To the astonishment of the righteous, who never saw him in prison, thirsty or hungry, he will answer: “Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”