Who is Jesus?

01The question

“But whom do you say that I am?”

“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’”

Notice what Peter doesn’t say. Not “a great teacher”. Not “a good man”. He says something you’d never say about your favorite professor.

And Jesus doesn’t correct him; He tells Peter that “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”⁷

Two thousand years later, that question hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just been passed down the line, person to person. And now it’s got your name on it.

So what’s the Church’s answer? Weirder than you’d expect. And better.

02The claim

God became one of us

Here it is: Jesus is truly the Son of God who, without stopping being God, became a man and our brother.¹³ Not half and half, and not some smoothie of the two. The Catechism says it in six words: “Jesus Christ is true God and true man.”¹

“The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

And “flesh” means flesh.¹⁴ The Gospels show him so worn out from walking that he just sits down by a well.¹⁵ After forty days without food, he’s hungry, like you’d be.¹⁶

The God who made galaxies, sitting by a well because His feet hurt. Sit with that for a second.

Which raises the obvious question. Why on earth would God do that?

03The reason

Why he came

The Catechism gives four reasons, and they’re short.¹⁷

To bring us back to God.² So that we would know God’s love.¹⁸ To show us what a holy life looks like.¹⁹ And, most startling of all, to make us “partakers of the divine nature.”²⁰

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Now read that list again. Every single reason is about you.

But here’s the thing. The whole story lives or dies on one claim. Did he actually rise from the dead?

04The evidence

A letter from about AD 56

The Catechism points you to a letter, which is a very un-mythical thing to do. “In about A.D. 56 St. Paul could already write to the Corinthians” what he’d been taught about Jesus.²²

“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep.”

Look at that last line. More than five hundred people saw him at once, and most were still alive when Paul wrote. In other words: go ask them. That’s not how you write a legend.

The Church says the Resurrection is “a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified.”²² Not a metaphor; “the crowning truth of our faith in Christ.”³

And it’s honest about what we don’t know: “no one was an eyewitness to Christ’s Resurrection,” and no Gospel describes the moment itself. It stays right at the heart of the mystery.²⁴

So where does that leave you, if you’re not sure yet? In good company, actually.

05Your answer

You do not need every answer today

Thomas, one of the Twelve, Jesus’ inner circle, missed the first appearance.^25,26 His friends are buzzing, and he basically says, prove it: “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”²⁷

Eight days later, Thomas is in the room, and Jesus shows up.²⁸ The biggest skeptic in the group says five words: “My Lord and my God.”²⁹

Faith, the Church says, is “the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself.”³⁰ God makes the first move, and you get to answer; it’s His gift and your choice.^31,32

And questions aren’t the enemy: “faith seeks understanding.”³³ One of the best lines ever written, from St. John Henry Newman: “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”³⁴

Peter answered on a road. You can take your time. The question will wait for you.