Sometimes we can’t hear the truth the first time it comes around. Maybe it arrives as an inconvenient fact in a scientific survey. It simply can’t be true that our favorite food or pastime is bad for us! We reject the report. We prefer the truth to be otherwise. Then, we hear it from another source, as our doctor holds up a lab test full of numbers that bode ill. Finally, we experience that truth more potently, when something goes wrong and we wind up in the ER. The third time is usually the charm: the once-suspect idea is now ready to be incorporated as the real deal.

Maybe the three-punch effectiveness of truth is why Jesus didn’t come into the world as simply the great guru many of his admirers prefer him to be. Matthew the gospel writer, for example, sees the teaching aspect of Jesus’ ministry as central to his identity. Jesus is the new Moses in Matthew’s account. The Sermon on the Mount mirrors the Sinai event as the new law for Israel to live by. This gospel was the early church’s instruction manual as it presents how to pray, govern family life, maintain a just society, and live as church together. The church fathers quoted it most frequently of the four. Augustine insisted it be placed at the head of the New Testament even though Mark’s version of the story is obviously the earliest.

Jesus’ role as rabbi-teacher is still vital for us today. But he’s more than that, as Mark and John both emphasize. Jesus also makes claims about himself that are stunning, challenging, and game-changing. Early manuscripts of Mark contain the audacious heading: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” No mere rabbi here! The declaration of truth with unprecedented authority, the proclamation of the Kingdom, the I AM statements Jesus uses to identify himself in unity with his Father—all of these are revelations of a supernatural essence that fill his friends with admiration and his opponents with dread.

And of course, Jesus is more than a divine proclaimer. The healing stories, which appear in every gospel but are concentrated in Luke above all, present the restorative aspect of Jesus’ ministry. If teaching doesn’t inspire you, if proclamation doesn’t startle you, how about the caring touch that makes the wounded whole? Matthew puts it plainly in his best summary of what Jesus did in Galilee: “He went around teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.” One of these activities alone may not move you. But three together just might give you cause for wonder.

Related scripture links

Flaws of the great Christian teachers: Mark 10:28; 14:29-31, 37; Acts 18:24-28; 2 Cor. 11:30-12:10
Now until the end of the age: Matt. 28:20

Catechism links

Discipleship: CCC 425-429; 541-542; 618; 787-789; 878; 1816; 1989
Christian joy: CCC 1720-1724