Who is This Man?
By Sister Kieran Sawyer, SSND
Purpose
The mystery of the Incarnation teaches us that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. The contemporaries of Jesus—those who knew him well, those who heard him teach, those who were healed by his power, those whose lives were changed by his loving presence—often asked: “Who is this man?” This session helps high school youth explore this question for themselves, and to come to some understanding of the Church’s long struggle to clarify what it means that the Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, became truly man while remaining truly God.
Component: Catechesis
Correlation to the U.S. Bishops’ Adaptation: Course 2: Who Is Jesus Christ? / The Mystery of the Incarnation (Catechism of the Catholic Church #454-469, 479-483)
464 “The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.
During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.”
Session at a Glance
7:00 p.m. Introduction – Jesus and God
7:15 p.m. Who Is This Man?
Extend the Session: Channel JESU interviews
7:30 p.m. You Are the Christ
7:45 p.m. Creeds
8:00 p.m. Doctrine and Heresies
8:10 p.m. Reflection and Prayer: Who Do You Say That I Am?
8:25 p.m. Announcements and Refreshments
8:30 p.m. Good Night!
Extend the Session: Channel JESU Interviews (30 minutes)
Step 1: Make two copies of Handout 2, Channel JESU Interviews. Keep one for yourself and cut the other into strips. Read the Scripture passages ahead of time and be prepared to play the role of the reporter. You will be asking questions that will help the participants to respond intelligently.
Step 2: Distribute the strips and Bibles to your students. If your group is small, some will receive two slips. If the group is large, put two people in one or more of the events. Say:
A reporter from Channel JESU will be arriving soon. He/She is preparing a documentary on the man Jesus who died several months ago. You will be playing the part of one of the people who knew Jesus or knew someone who did. The reporter will interview each of you, asking what you know about Jesus. Be prepared to talk in the voice of the person represented on your strip.
Step 3: Allow a few minutes for the students to read their Scripture passage and prepare for the interview.
Step 4: Walk among the group, playing the role of the reporter from Channel JESU. Ask several questions to help them tell their story. Always end by asking something like: “Who is this man?” or “What do you think this all means?” or “Do you really believe what you saw and heard?”
Materials Needed
· Pens or pencils, one for each participant
· Bibles, one for each participant
· Lap boards (something stiff to write on when the participants move to reflection space), one per person
· Laptop computer, LCD projector, and screen
Note to Leader: Your audio/visual set up needs to be adequate for everyone to be able to see the PowerPoint.
· Who is This Man? PowerPoint file, downloaded from YMA site
· Catechism of the Catholic Church
· Handout 1, Who Do YOU Say That I Am?, one for each participant
· Quarter sheets of paper, to use for feedback, one for each participant
Extend the Session
· Handout 2, Channel JESU Interviews, one copy of the handout cut into strips, and one whole copy for you to use as the reporter.
Prepare in Advance
Note to Leader: This session is correlated to the U.S. Bishops’ Adaptation of the Curriculum Framework, published in January 2010 by the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis at the USCCB. Download the Adaptation from this website: http://www.usccb.org/evangelization/Adaptation-of-HS-Curriculum-Framework-Preamble2.pdf.
1. Download the Power Point slides. Practice correlating the slides with the script. If you are not able to use Power Point, prepare to teach the material with chalkboard and charts.
2. Create a prayer table that will be placed in the middle of your prayer space. Place a cloth, candle and a bible on the table.
3. Set up tables for refreshments and sign-in. Have one or two people at the sign-in table with check-in sheet and nametags and registration information (have a few extra packets on hand for walk-ins). Hospitality is important! As the leader, spend the arrival time moving among the participants, greeting and speaking with them.
4. If doing the Extend the Session, prepare for your role as reporter.
Session Outline
Introduction – Jesus and God (15 minutes)
Welcome participants. Begin the session by playfully asking a series of questions designed to bring into the open the confusion in their minds concerning the relationship between Jesus and God. Ask each question of several different students. Ask if they agree with each other’s answers, and if the answers make sense in relationship to one another.
Show these questions on the PowerPoint one at a time. (If you aren’t using the PowerPoint, read them one at a time.)
· [Name], are Jesus and God the same person?
· [Name], do you pray to God or to Jesus?
· [Name], is Jesus the son of God the same way that you are the son/daughter of your parents?
· [Name], did Jesus create the world?
· [Name], did God die on the cross?
· [Name], is Jesus alive or dead right now? Was he ever dead?
· [Name], is Jesus God? Who did he talk to when he prayed?
· [Name], can you call yourself a Christian if you don’t believe that Jesus is God?
Say:
If you are confused [click PPT], you are in good company. Many people who call themselves Christians do not really understand who Jesus is and how the man Jesus is related to God. Tonight’s session is going to try to sort through some of that confusion for you.
Some people aren’t even sure that Jesus exists. So let’s start there. It is a historical fact [click] that there is an actual historical person named Jesus who lived and died in a little country on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
[Show the map, and have someone find Jerusalem. Explain that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel, the land where Jesus lived. Today, Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel.]
When did Jesus live? [Show the timeline.] The right end of the line is now, this year; the left end really extends back to the beginning of creation, so it is far off our slide. Let’s say that each notch on the line represents 1000 years. Where on the line would you put the historical Jesus?
[Accept a few guesses, then click to show the Chi Rho and explain that it is made up of the Greek letters for Jesus Christ.]
Jesus lived only 2000 years ago, 2011 to be exact.
[Point out other events on the line: the discovery of America (1500 AD); the Roman Empire (500 BC); the building of the Pyramids (3000 BC); the invention of writing (5000 BC); the beginning of farming (7000 BC); and way back off the chart the stone age; dinosaurs; the big bang, etc.]
Where on our timeline would we put God? [Click the blank screen, accept a few answers, then click to the triangle.] God would never fit on our timeline. God is before all time, after all time, above and beyond all time. We could maybe put a tiny dot in the center of our triangle to represent our whole timeline and the entire created universe. Does anyone know why we use a triangle to represent God?
[Click for God, then see if the students can explain the triangle as a symbol of the Trinity, and click for Father, Son, Holy Spirit.]
So now we are ready for the big question: [click] What is the relationship between God—the almighty, eternal, invisible Creator of the universe, and Jesus—the human being who lived 2000 years ago on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea?
And the amazing answer—[click] The man Jesus and God the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, are the same person.
These are the two foundational mysteries of the Christian faith. [click] The people who believe these fundamental truths of faith call themselves Christians.
The Trinity: [click] There are three persons in one God—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The Incarnation: [click] The man Jesus IS God the Son. Jesus is fully God and fully human.
And how do we know these mysterious truths? [click] We learned them from the early Christians. [click] They learned them by experience and by faith.
[click] The New Testament [hold it up] is the record of their experience of the man Jesus, and their gradually growing faith that this man was indeed the Son of God.
Who Is This Man? (15 minutes)
Distribute copies of the New Testament. Then say:
So let’s suppose we all live in the country of Israel in the little town of Nazareth. We all know Jesus, who works with his father Joseph at carpentry jobs around the area. Jesus and his mother, Mary, are invited to a wedding in the neighboring town of Cana. Some of us have also been invited. We happen to be standing nearby when Mary brings a serious problem to Jesus: the wedding party has run out of wine! Mary wants Jesus to do something about it. We see the stewards filling the six big stone jars full of water. We hear their shouts of amazement when the water gets turned into wine. So [Name of one of the participants], what do you think about this miracle of water turned to wine? How do you answer the question: “Who is this man?”
Ask several more students how they would have responded to the miracle, then turn to John 2: 1-11 and ask one student to read the story from the Bible. Then say:
It is a few weeks later. A group of us have started following Jesus around. One night he comes with us on our fishing boat. It’s been a long day of preaching for Jesus, and he falls asleep in the back of the boat. Suddenly a huge storm comes up. We are all in a panic and wake Jesus up frantically. He stands up calmly, speaks to the wind and the waves, and the storm stops, just like that. [Name of a participant], you were there that night. What do you think about this? How do you answer the question: “Who is this man?”
Ask several more students how they would have responded to the miracle, then turn to Mark 4: 35-41 and have someone read the story from the Bible. Then say:
The New Testament is filled with experiences like this. Day after day, the followers of Jesus see him heal the sick and hear him preach a message of love and forgiveness. He prays a lot, and refers to God as his Father. He says that someday he will send them the Holy Spirit.
Many people believe in him, but not everyone. Let’s read Luke 5:17-26.
Have someone read the passage, then ask several participants questions like:
· [Name of participant], supposing you are one of the scribes in this story, how would you respond to this miracle?
· [Name of participant], you are the man on the stretcher, how would you respond?
You are the Christ: Statements of Faith in the New Testament (15 minutes)
Begin this portion of the session by saying:
So we have seen that the New Testament records the early Christians’ experience of the man Jesus. It also records their growing faith in just who this amazing person was. We find statements of their faith throughout their writings. Let’s look at some of these.
Guide the students in the reading of the following passages. Point out the faith statement in each: a statement that Jesus is God. (For example, explain that the name “Christ” refers to Jesus as God. Explain the term “Word” as a name for the Second Person of the Trinity.)
Matthew 14:22-33 (Truly you are the Son of God)
Matthew 16:13-18 (You are the Christ, the Son of the living God)
John 1:1-14 (In the beginning was the Word)
Philippians 2:5-8 (Though he was God, he emptied himself)
John 3:16 (God sent his son)
Creeds (15 minutes)
Make the transition from the faith statements in the New Testament to creeds by saying:
The early church continued to grapple with the two great mysteries, the Trinity and the Incarnation, always trying to find just the right words to explain what they believed about the Three Persons in God, and about Jesus who is both God and man. One of the earliest formulas is found in the prayer we call the Apostles’ Creed, which dates back to the time of the apostles. Can anyone recite the Apostles’ Creed for us?
Don’t be surprised if no one can. Show it on the PowerPoint screen and recite it together. Ask the youth to point out how this Creed explains Trinity and Incarnation. Then say:
Another Creed that you know because we recite it every Sunday at Mass is called the Nicene Creed. It was first formulated by the Council of Nicea in 325. Can anyone tell me what a Council is? To make the wording even clearer, it was modified by the Council of Constantinople in 381. The English version of this Creed has just been modified again so that it more closely reflects the original Latin version. Let’s look at what we are saying when we recite this Creed.