Life of Christ (DF Christian Bestsellers Book 4)

by Fulton J. Sheen

Satan wanted to make God the Father do something for Our Lord that Our Lord refused to do for Himself; namely, to make Him an object of special care, exempt from obedience to natural laws which were already the laws of God.

Your scientists are the proofreaders, but not the authors of the Book of Nature; they can see and examine My handiwork, but they cannot create one atom themselves.

I refuse to perform stunts to win them, for they would not really be won that way. It is only when I am seen on the Cross that I really draw men to Myself; it is by sacrifice, and not by marvels, that I must make My appeal. I must win followers not with test tubes, but with My blood; not with material power, but with love; not with celestial fireworks, but with the right use of reason and free will.

The words of Satan seem, indeed, very boastful. Had the kingdoms of the world really been delivered to him? Our Lord called Satan the “prince of the world,” but it was not God that had delivered any of the kingdoms of the world to him; mankind had done so, by sin. But even if Satan did, so to speak, rule the kingdoms of the earth by popular consent, it was not really within his power to give them to whomsoever he pleased.

“You have come, O Christ, to win the world, but the world is already mine; I will give it to You, if You will compromise and worship me. Forget Your Cross, Your Kingdom of Heaven. If You want the world, it is at Your feet. You will be hailed with louder hosannas than Jerusalem ever sang to its kings; and You will be spared the pains and sorrows of the Cross of contradiction.”

The kingdoms of the world must be elevated to the Kingdom of God; the Kingdom of God will not be dragged down to the level of the kingdoms of the world.

John was affirming that we must not look first for a teacher, a giver of moral precepts, or a worker of miracles. First we must look for One Who had been appointed as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

This means that the Lamb was slain, as it were, by Divine decree from all eternity, though the temporal fulfillment had to await Calvary. His death was according to God’s eternal plan and God’s determinate counsel. But the principle of self-sacrificing love was eternal. Redemption was in the mind of God before the foundation of the world was laid. God, Who is outside time, saw from all eternity mankind falling, and being redeemed.

As the scapegoat on which sins were laid was driven out of the city, so the Lamb of God Who really took away sins would be driven from the City of Jerusalem.

Throughout the Gospels whenever there is a warning, like thunder, of the Cross, there is an accompanying flash of the glory of the Resurrection; whenever there is the approaching shadow of redemptive suffering, there is also the light of spiritual freedom that will come after it.

He would be the Bridegroom, His Church would be the bride. And since He came to establish this kind of union between Himself and redeemed humanity, it was fitting that He should commence His public ministry by assisting at a marriage.

In those days, fathers of the bride had greater burdens than today. For the rejoicings and the expenses could continue for eight days. One of the probable reasons for the wine giving out was that Our Lord had brought in so many uninvited guests.

The “Hour,” therefore, referred to His glorification through His Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension.

His mother was asking for a miracle; He was implying that a miracle worked as a sign of His Divinity would be the beginning of His Death. The moment He showed Himself before men as the Son of God, He would draw down upon Himself their hatred, for evil can tolerate mediocrity, but not supreme goodness.

Cana was a rehearsal for Golgotha. He was not questioning the wisdom of beginning His Public Life and going to death at this particular point in time; it was rather a question of submitting His reluctant human nature to obedience to the Cross.

Obedience triumphed in both cases; at Cana, the water was changed into wine; at Calvary, the wine was changed into blood.

He was telling His mother that she was virtually pronouncing a sentence of death over Him. Few are the mothers who send their sons to battlefields; but here was one who was actually hastening the hour of her Son’s mortal conflict with the forces of evil. If He agreed to her request, He would be beginning His hour of death and glorification.

He proceeded immediately to tell her that her relations with Him would be henceforth changed. Until then, during His hidden life, she had been known as the mother of Jesus. But now that He was launched on the work of Redemption, she would no longer be just His mother, but also the mother of all His human brethren whom He would redeem. To indicate this new relationship, He now addressed her, not as “Mother” but as the “Universal Mother” or “Woman.”

As Our Lord was a man, she was His mother; and as He was a Savior, she was also the mother of all whom He would save.

At the Resurrection He gave Himself back to her, to show that while she had gained new children, she had not lost Him. At Cana, the prophecy that Simeon had made to her in the temple was confirmed: henceforth, whatever involved her Son would involve her, too; whatever happened to Him would happen to her. If He was destined to go to the Cross, so was she; and if He was now beginning His Public Life, then she would begin a new life too, no longer as just the mother of Jesus, but as the mother of all whom Jesus the Savior would redeem.

The first miracle was something like creation itself; it was done by the power of “the Word.”

Truly the best wine was kept. Up until then in the unfolding of revelation, the poor wine had been the prophets, judges, and kings, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Josue—all were like the water awaiting the miracle of the Expected of the Nations. The world generally gives its best pleasures first; afterward come the dregs and the bitterness. But Christ reversed the order and gave us the feast after the fast, the Resurrection after the Crucifixion, the joy of Easter Sunday after the sorrow of Good Friday.

In all the other incidents of His life, the Cross came first, then the joy. But at Cana, it was the joy of the nuptials that came first—the

This is not precisely true. When the Transfiguration ocurred at Mount Hebron, Jesus shown his majesty and glory first, only after what he mentioned his Passion, Death and Resurrection

Thus He did at a marriage feast what He would not do in a desert; He worked in the full gaze of men what He had refused to do before Satan. Satan asked Him to turn stones into bread in order that He might become an economic Messias; His mother asked Him to change water into wine that He might become a Savior. Satan tempted Him from death; Mary “tempted” Him to death and Resurrection. Satan tried to lead Him from the Cross; Mary sent Him toward it.

This was both His first public appearance before the nation and His first visit to the temple as the Messias. He had already worked His first miracle at Cana; now He came into His Father’s house to claim a Son’s right.

He made a small scourge. With this, He proceeded to drive out the cattle and the profiteers. The unpopularity of the exploiters and their fear of public scandal probably prevented them from putting up any real resistance to the Savior.

He was now making it clear that the temple was meant for all nations, not for Jerusalem alone; it was a house of prayer for the Magi, as well as for the shepherds, for the foreign missions as well as for the home missions.

“The temple is the place where God dwells. You have profaned the old temple; but there is now another Temple. Destroy this new Temple, by crucifying Me, and in three days I shall raise it up. Though you will destroy My Body, which is the house of My Father, by My Resurrection I shall put all nations in possession of the new Temple.”

The moment that it was destroyed, the veil that hung over the Holy of Holies would be rent from top to bottom; and the veil of His flesh would also be rent, revealing the true Holy of Holies, the Sacred Heart of the Son of God.

was no longer His Father’s house, it was their house. The earthly temple ceases to be God’s dwelling place when it becomes the center of mercenary interests. Without Him, it was not a temple at all.

No Temple was ever more systematically destroyed than was His Body. The dome of the Temple, His head, was crowned with thorns; the foundations of it, His sacred feet, were riven with nails; the transepts, His hands, were stretched out in the form of a Cross; the Holy of Holies, His Heart, was pierced with a lance.

His sacrifice, however, would not be a piece of pointless exhibitionism, but an act of redemptive self-humiliation. Satan proposed that He expose His Temple to possible ruin for the sake of exhibitionism, for the sake of display; but Our Lord exposed the Temple of His Body to certain ruin for the sake of salvation and atonement.

He was still holding back a little, for he veiled his personality under the official “we.” This is a trick intellectuals sometimes use to escape personal responsibility; it is meant to imply that if a change is needed it must be for society at large, rather than for their own hearts.

The idea that stood out in the beginning of the discussion between Nicodemus and Our Lord was that spiritual life was different from physical or intellectual life. The difference between spiritual life and physical life, Jesus was telling him, was greater than that between a crystal and a living cell. Spiritual life is not a push from below; it is a gift from above. A man does not really become less selfish and more liberal-minded until he becomes a follower of Christ. There must be a new birth generated from above. Every person in the world has a first birth from the flesh. But Jesus said that a second birth from above is necessary for the spiritual life.

As one cannot lead a physical life unless born to it, so neither can one lead a Divine life unless born of God.

The emphasis is not on self-development, but on regeneration; not on improving our present state, but on completely changing our status.

The Kingdom of God was presented as a new creation. When a man issues from the womb of his mother he is only a creature of God, as a table is the creation, in a lesser degree, of the carpenter. No man in the natural order can call God “Father” to do this man would have to become something he is not. He must by a Divine gift share in the nature of God, as he presently shares in the nature of his parents.

One cannot tell when grace is coming or how it will work on the soul; whether it will come as a result of a disgust with sin, or of a yearning for a higher goodness. The voice of the Spirit is within the soul; the peace which It brings, the light which It sheds, and the strength which It gives, are unmistakably there. The regeneration of man is not directly discernible to the human eye.

Nicodemus saw that the Divine life in man is not just a question of being; it also involves the problem of becoming, through a power that is not in man but only in God Himself.

Our Lord never spoke of His Heavenly, or Risen Glory without bringing in the ignominy of the Cross. Sometimes He spoke of the glory first as He was doing now with Nicodemus, but the Crucifixion had to be its condition.

As the brass serpent had the appearance of a serpent and yet lacked its venom, so too, when He would be lifted up upon the bars of the Cross, He would have the appearance of a sinner and yet be without sin. As all who looked upon the brass serpent had been healed of the bite of the serpent, so all who looked upon Him with love and faith would be healed of the bite of the serpent of evil.

The poison of hate, sensuality, and envy which is in the hearts of men could not be healed simply by wise exhortations and social reforms. The wages of sin is death, and therefore it was to be by death that sin would be atoned for.

The two greatest banners that were ever unfurled were the uplifted serpent and the uplifted Savior. And yet there was an infinite difference between them. The theater of one was the desert, and the audience was a few thousand Israelites; the theater of the other was the universe and the audience, the whole of mankind. From the one came a bodily healing, soon to be undone again by death; from the other flowed soul-healing, unto life everlasting. And yet one was the prefigurement of the other.

Our Blessed Lord in His talk with Nicodemus proclaimed Himself the Light of the World. But the most astounding part of His teaching was that He said no one would understand His teaching while He was alive and that His death and Resurrection would be essential to understanding it. No other teacher in the world ever said that it would take a violent death to clarify his teachings. Here was a Teacher Who made His teaching so secondary that He could say that the only way that He would ever draw men to Himself would be not by His doctrine, not by what He said, but by His Crucifixion.

Buddha is always seated, eyes closed, hands folded across a fat body. Christ is never seated; He is always lifted up and enthroned. His Person and His death are the heart and soul of His lesson. The Cross, and all it implies, is once again central in His life.

The Samaritans were a hybrid race, formed centuries before, when the Israelites were brought into bondage. The Assyrians sent some of their own people among them to mix with them, thus creating a new race. The first colonists of Samaria brought idolatry with them, but later on, there was an introduction of a spurious Judaism. The Samaritans accepted the five books of Moses and some of the prophecies; but all other historical books were rejected because these recounted the story of the Jews whom they despised.

Two of the greatest converts that Our Blessed Lord ever made, the Syrophoenician woman and this woman, were both made when He was tired. When He seemed most unfit to do His Father’s business, He did it most effectively. St. Paul was taken from work to prison; but he converted some of his jailers and wrote his Epistles. The willing heart always creates its own opportunities.

Whenever Our Lord wished to do a favor, He always began by asking for one. He did not begin with a reproof, but with a request. His first was “Give!” There must always be an emptying of the human before there can be a filling with the Divine, as the Divine emptied Himself to fill the human.

All the human satisfactions of the cravings of body and soul have one defect; they do not satisfy forever. They only serve to deaden the present want; but they never extinguish it. The want always revives again. The waters the world gives fall back to earth again; but the water of life which He gives is a supernatural impulse, and pushes onward even to heaven itself.

The windows of her soul had become so dirty with sin that she could not see spiritual significance in the material universe. Our Blessed Lord, seeing that she failed to comprehend the spiritual lesson, now brought home to her why she did not understand His meaning: her life was immoral.