(My guest editorial from this month’s Catholic Insight.)

Holy Week offers an annual barrage of media questioning the authenticity of the last week of Jesus’ life: his death, burial, and Resurrection. Bizzare, outlandish theories on what happened to Jesus are front page news – evidence is optional.

Countering that trend is Jesus, the Final Days (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), by noted Evangelical scholar Craig A. Evans, the Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College, and N.T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham, England. Titans of scholarship, they debunk the unvarnished schlock that often passes for historical Jesus research.

With sober eyes on actual historical evidence, these men make their case about what really happened to Jesus of Nazareth. Chapter one, “The Shout of Death”, by Evans, presents the evidence for Jesus’ death by crucifixion. This has become necessary in today’s climate, due to the denials of sensationalist controversialists. Case in point: a recent book states that Jesus faked his own death (with Pilate’s help!), subsequently fleeing to Egypt. As Evans notes, “…the utter silliness of this scenario escapes many in today’s reading public” (p.3).

Jesus’ death is well-affirmed by the New Testament, but also by historians of the age: Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, and Mara bar Serapion all report it. Evans makes a persuasive case for the historicity of aspects of the Passion Narrative that are often questioned by scholars, including the “Passover Pardon” of Barabbas – Jesus Barabbas, according to some ancient manuscripts of Matthew. The irony is not lost – “bar Abba” means “son of the father”. The crowd selects the wrong Jesus, not the true Son of the Father.

After reviewing the meaning of Jesus’ mockery at the hands of the soldiers (mimicking he Roman “triumph” of the Caesars, who were called “divine” and the “son of god”), Evans makes a theological observation on Jesus’ death: “‘Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last’ (Mark 15:37). The act of shouting is itself the death…His death manifests itself as a shout…Jesus’ very death displays his power; the release of his spirit is awesome.” This is why the centurion attending Jesus exclaims, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:39) – something he was only supposed to confess of the Roman Emperor (p. 34-35).

Part two, “The Silence of Burial”, also by Evans, authenticates Jesus’ burial. This is necessary due to theories like former Catholic priest John Dominic Crossan’s, who famously claimed that Jesus’ dead body was likely thrown into a shallow common grave, where it was eaten by dogs. While not denying that at times in late antiquity, the Romans would leave bodies on crosses to be mauled by animals and birds of carrion (as a public deterrent to revolt), there is no chance this happened to Jesus, because it was peacetime. For Pilate to have left Jesus’ body hanging on the cross overnight during Passover would have been a fatal mistake, all but guaranteeing a riot by the myriad Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the feast. The Romans never would have risked offending Jewish sensibilities here, which they respected during times of calm. Leaving Jesus’ body on the cross would have defiled the land (see Deut. 21:22-23), making it impossible for Jews to celebrate the feast in an acceptable manner. No, Jesus did receive a proper burial with the help of Joseph of Arimathea, an undoubtedly historical reference (no early Christian would have invented a story of Jesus receiving a proper burial, not from his followers, but from a member of the very council that condemned him).

The final chapter, “The Surprise of Resurrection” by Wright, is a condensed version of his massive tome, The Resurrection of the Son of God. While verifying the bodily nature of Jesus’ Resurrection, Wright corrects many wrong notions of resurrection in general: it most emphatically is not “disembodied bliss” or even “life after death”. It means, in his fine phrase, “life after life after death”. The surprise was that a bodily resurrection occurred within history, whereas most Jews expected no one to be raised from death until the general resurrection at the end of time (cf. Daniel 12:1-3).

This massively learned, although short and readable book, will probably not become a bestseller, although one wishes it were otherwise. The reason is simple: no crackpot conspiracy theories are hidden within. Just the facts.

My article from the February ’09 isssue of Catholic Insight. Enjoy!

One of the greatest evidences for the veracity of the Catholic Church has been her miracles. Fitting, for her founder offered the same credentials for his own life and work:

“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves” (John 14:11). The sheer concentration of the miraculous in the life of Christ was a “sign” (in fact, John’s Gospel calls Jesus’ miracles just that, “signs”) that God was powerfully moving in and through him – yes, even as him, to advance his saving plan for the world.

This continued, of course, through his followers, who did even “greater things than these” (John 14:12), because, in the apostolic age, Jesus was now performing his mighty works through ordinary humans. Peter’s mere shadow would heal the sick (Acts 5:15). A handkerchief that had touched Paul would do the same, casting out demons, too (Acts 19:11-12).

But miracles like this, which help authenticate the Gospel, are not limited to the time of Christ and the apostles. Every age in the Church has been marked by the miraculous. In the Catholic Church, miracles literally never cease.

This February, we celebrate the feast day of a saint whose life was touched by myriad miracles, all of which give stunning testimony to Catholic truth. Saint Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879), only 14, encountered the Blessed Virgin Mary in the grotto of Lourdes in the South of France on February 11, 1858, though at the time, she did not know who it was.

Bernadette was a poor peasant girl, not afforded formal religious education. When, on March 25, “the Lady” (as Bernadette called her) told her in the local dialect, “Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou” (“I am the Immaculate Conception”), her pastor could hardly believe it. Four years earlier, the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception had been proclaimed by the Vatican. But Bernadette would have had no way of knowing, less understanding, what this meant.

Another impressive confirmation of God’s action at Lourdes was the miraculous stream unearthed by Bernadette at Mary’s behest. These waters have been the source of innumerable healings over the years, inexplicable by natural means.

Unlike some modern “visionaries” and spirituality gurus, she shunned publicity and refused to profit from her experiences (she would never have appeared on Oprah). Her fame was her cross, and her later consecrated life in the convent of Nevers did not spare her this. She often would taste the bitter jealousy of her fellow Sisters of Charity.

Although Bernadette’s Lourdes has been the source of so much healing, the saint’s own life, as is often the case, was marred by sickness and suffering. She died at only 35, but God saved one of his greatest graces for Bernadette until after her death. Her body was found to be incorrupt, and is today the most beautiful of all the incorrupts in the Church’s history.

I have a friend named Brad, a Protestant. For months I tried to explain to him the truth of Catholicism, but no argument moved him. After my wife and I returned from our honeymoon in Rome, we showed Brad and his wife pictures from our travels. I was hoping our visits to the Vatican and the luminous churches of the Eternal City would attract them to the beauty of the Faith. However, I had forgotten that family photos usually only interest one’s family! Predictably, they were bored to tears.

But as I flipped through our slideshow, I noted, “Oh, and here’s the incorrupt body of Pope John XXIII”. “Whoa! Hold on a minute”, he said. “Go back to that slide. What?” Brad was incredulous. My carefully constructed theological arguments never piqued his curiosity, but the miraculous did.

A question for Brad and others like him is this: Why does the Catholic Church alone boast of the continuous presence of miracles in her midst? Why would God preserve so many Catholic saints incorrupt? One simply does not see this in other Christian traditions. The incorrupt bodies of saints like Bernadette, no longer speaking in audible words, give eloquent testimony to the incorruptibility of the Catholic Church herself.

Just a couple of nights ago, I returned home from teaching the Bible Study class at St Justin Martyr, and, exhausted, flopped down to watch the end of the national championship game for U.S. college football. The University of Florida Gators, led by quarterback Tim Tebow, last year’s Heisman winner, defeated the University of Oklahoma Sooners. 

Tebow, a devout Evangelical Christian, wore eyeblack with “John 3:16” written across it in white letters (see photo). From all accounts, Tebow is sincere in his beliefs. He was actually born in the Philippines, where his parents are missionaries. They run, among other things, an orphanage. Tim himself often travels there to help out and preach to the kids there about Jesus Christ.

The only problem is, he’s defeating his own purpose.

No doubt most of his “converts” are Catholics. The Philippines, as most are aware, is a heavily Catholic country. During my Evangelical years, my own pastor and his family would travel to the Philippines and conduct crusades. I still possess a coffee mug he brought home for me. It says, “Reaching and touching Filipinos for Christ”. My wife (whose parents were born in the Philippines) and I still laugh about that mug. But we could just as easily shed tears. That’s because, as sincere and as well-intentioned as my pastor – and Tebow – are, they are sincerely wrong.

Unaware that the Catholic Church was founded by Christ and is the true Church, they, in convincing Filipinos to leave it, are unwittingly drawing them further from the touch of Christ.

And sadly, because some Filipinos (like many Catholics everywhere) are not well grounded in the reasons for their faith, they’re easy pickins’ for these movements.

If only they and their would-be evangelizers would heed the words of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, writing in his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (c. 107 AD), echoing the words of Jesus in John 6:

Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God … They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the very same flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes. 

It is by the Eucharist, safeguarded in the Catholic Church, that we are physically reached and touched by Christ himself.

Today is not only New Year’s Day, but also the feast of Mary, Mother of God. It’s one of only two Holy Days of Obligation for Canadian Catholics other than Sundays (the other being Christmas).

The dogma of Mary being the Theotokos, or God-bearer was formally defined by the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431. Ephesus, many believe, was the city in which Mary lived after Christ gave her into the care of the Apostle John at the foot of the cross (see John 19:25-27). The definition needed to be made because of the heresy of Nestorius, a renegade bishop who had been denying the unity of the two natures, divine and human, in the one divine Person of Christ. Under his view, Mary only gave birth to the human Jesus, not the divine Son of God.

But Mary did not birth a nature, but a person. When the bishops in Ephesus formally promulgated the truth that Mary is the Mother of God, the people were so exultant that they carried the bishops aloft on their shoulders in a jubilant torchlight procession through the town!

Despite all this, the doctrine often comes under heavy fire from non-Catholics who misunderstand it. Many believe that we Catholics worship Mary as some sort of a goddess. But the Mother of God is in no way God the Mother. Mary is a creature, like you and I, although she is far more exalted than any creature, even the angels. For, although the angels always behold the face opf God, Mary contained in her womb he whom the universe could not contain. God made his dwelling within her, and she was not consumed (this is why the burning bush of Exodus has been seen as an Old Testament type or prefigurement of Mary).

Common sense alone would dictate to any orthodox Christian that Mary is the Mother of God. After all, Jesus is God, and Mary is his mother. Put two and two together…

Scripture, as well, teaches this truth. Matthew 1:23 says, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” -which means, ‘God with us'” (NIV). The Virgin Mary’s son is none other than God the Son.

It may surprise people to know that the original Protestant, Martin Luther, and another key leader in the Protestant movement, John Calvin, also held firmly to this doctrine, although their spiritual progeny have largely abandoned it:

Luther: “She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God … It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God” (Martin Luther’s Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], volume 24, 107).

Calvin: “Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God” (John Calvin, Calvini Opera [Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900], Volume 45, 35).

Luther actually supported in his writings every Marian dogma held by the Catholic Church – not only her Divine Maternity, but her Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception and the Assumption (the latter two not even formally defined until after Luther’s death). Calvin was also a staunch believer in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, reserving some of his most vitriolic comments for those foolish enough not to believe the doctrine.