Session 4 Summary

In this session, Bishop Barron continues the discussion on Path Two: “Knowing you are a sinner.” In addition to the image that he gave us in the previous session (how sin feels like from Dante’s poems), he is giving us two more images: (a) Jesus the healer, and (b) Jesus the warrior.

Jesus The Healer 

In the New Testament, Jesus told us that we are sinners (and he is the judge) and that he offers us the way out of sin (he is the healer). Jesus calls people to Him, and then he heals them – just like he did to St. Paul. 

Jesus sets things right for the sinners. Hans Uhr Balthasar said, “Jesus is the keynote player.” We sinners play our own little tunes. The results: cacophony (inharmonious mixture of sounds). But when we tune our lives to Him, our lives become harmonious.

Jesus The Warrior

C. S. Lewis said that Jesus came as a little baby quietly and clandestinely behind the enemy lines because He came to fight, but not in the way of the world or with the weapons of the world. Jesus would do battle with the old way of living to embody a whole new way of life.

Jesus’ familiar Christmas story in Luke is the story of Jesus the warrior. It’s the story of two kings that would do battle in Jesus’ lifetime. The story begins with the way most stories and poems in the ancient world began: by invoking the powerful, Caesar Augustus, the greatest of all, the king of the world. He lived in his palace on the Palatine Hill, arguably the best house in the world, and he could have anything he wished, etc. 

But then, the story shifted to a lowly couple in the dusty corner of Caesar’s empire and their baby. Luke was telling us to keep our focus on the strange new king who was arriving: Jesus of Nazareth. His presence is the light in which the disorder of all the earthly kingdoms becomes apparent. 

Jesus died a violent death, but after he rose om the third day, he spoke words not of retribution, but of reconciliation and compassion. It is in this way that Jesus “takes away the sins of the world.” On the cross, the Son of God took on the hatred of all of us sinners, and in his forgiving love, he took that hatred away. By doing what no politicians, philosophers, or social reformers could possibly do, Jesus saves us.