Historical Theological Commission

THE GOSPEL CODE OF THE PEDAGOGY OF JESUS

Angelo Amato

1. Jesus, educator

The Jubilee is a gracious occasion to re-educate ourselves to be Christians and live as Christians imitating Jesus, our teacher. The Gospel constitutes the code of the Christian pedagogy. And it is there where the Christian learns how to live and act as a follower of Christ. This is what the saints of yesterday and today did and do. If Saint Francis lived the life of poverty of Jesus, Don Bosco imitated the gesture of welcome and the education of the young and Mother Teresa of Calcutta the attitude of assistance and care of the poor and abandoned.

We can list the following citations as some of the more extraordinary examples of the pedagogy of Jesus: Jesus welcomes the poor and the marginalized; he forgives and converts sinners; he heals the sick; he honors women; he takes in the needy and defends the small and weak; he teaches forgiveness and loving our enemies; he calls out insults; he reveals the Father as rich in mercy and teaches how to pray with the invocation «Our Father»; he educates with the example of facing persecution, the passion and death; and finally he teaches us to live in the joy of the resurrection.

2. Jesus, doctor of the soul and body

We will only illustrate some of the chapters of Christian pedagogy. Christ, doctor of the bodies and souls is a title based on the reality of the living Jesus. At the time of Jesus, obviously, there did not exist the modern scientific knowledge of illnesses and microorganisms which cause them. Nor did there exist an adequate theorization of psychological sicknesses. And neither was it known, at least in Israel, impressive surgical operations, with the exception of circumcision, which had more a characteristic of a socio-religious nature, than a therapeutic one. Even the rules of hygiene were rudimentary if not lacking, as well as the medicinal cures, which often were reduced to diets (Lk 8,55), ointments and poultices (cf. Is 1,6; 38,21), collyrium (cf. Ap. 3,18), baths (cf. Jn 5,4). In the New Testament there are descriptions of physical impairments such as deafness and muteness (cf. Mk 7,31-37), epilepsy (cf. Lk 9,38; Mt 17,14), hydropsy (Lk 14,2), hemorrhaging (cf. Mt 9,20-22) etc.

Miracles of recovery are innumerable. Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law from fever with a grand gesture of affection: he «touched her hand and the fever disappeared» (Mt 8,15). He heals the paralyzed who also remit their sins (cf. Mt 9,1-8). He gives a woman back her health, who had been suffering for 12 years from a loss of blood (cf. Mt 9,20-22). He gives sight to the blind (cf. Mt 9,27-31; 20, 29-34; Mk 8, 22-26): extraordinary is the case of the young man, blind since birth, who, healed by Jesus, filled with wonder not just the crowd but even his parents (cf. Jn 9,1-41). He gives back a deaf-mute his voice and hearing (Mk 7,31-37) and gives a man the use of his paralyzed hand (cf. Mt 12-9-14). He heals an epileptic (cf. Mt 17,14-21), an hydroptic (cf. Lk 14,1-6) and a curved woman, ill for 18 years (cf. Lk 13,10-17).

3. The paralyzed man from the pool of Bethzatha

One time, it was Jesus himself who went to visit a chronicly ill man. Being in Jerusalem, he entered the pool of Bethzatha, which has five porticos, under which there rested numerous invalids, sick, blind, lame and paralyzed: «One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your pallet and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked» (Jn 5,5-9).

Probably, this pool was - or had been - a kind of pagan sanctuary, dedicated to Asclepio, the Greek god of healing. Under the porticos there rested a great number of «invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed» (Jn 5,3). The pool, with its abundant waters and fresh from the source had a power of regeneration for one's health. Jesus took the initiative: «Do you want to be healed?» (Jn 5,6).

In this paralyzed man we can see the humility born from extreme marginalization and solitude of the illness. The paralyzed man sees everyday the other sick, who are accompanied to the water to heal. He, instead, remains by himself and immobile. No one takes care of him. The big cities, with there anonymous crowds often hide silent dramas of marginalization and solitude. Jesus comes to everyone, offering the water of life in various ways: with words of the Gospel, with his presence in the Eucharist in the ecclesial community; with the welcome, the help and the solidarity of good and virtuous men. This is an extraordinary antidote to solitude and marginalization of the poor, the sick, the old, unemployed and desperate foreigners.

4. Jesus, victorious over Satan

Jesus wins over not only the sin and sickness, but also over Satan. He frees men possessed by evil: «They brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick» (Mt 8,16). He healed the two possessed in Gadara (cf. Mt 8,28-34; Mk 5,1-20; Lk 8,26-39), the possessed at Cafarnao(Mk 1,21-28; Lk 4,31-37), one who was mute and possessed (cf. Mt 12,22-24), another blind and mute (Mt 12,22-24).

It is true that at that time, sicknesses, altered functions and illnesses such as epilepsy were considered consequences of diabolical possession. In the battle against the demons, though, Jesus found himself not only in front of sick people, but against the adversary of good, against the temptor and seducer of man. And he beats him. The power of Jesus is superior to that of Satan. In the exorcisms, Jesus heals not only the sick, but expels he who is the adversary of the Kingdom of God. In the battle between good and evil, Jesus is the victor over Satan.

5. Jesus honors women

The attitude of Jesus with regards to women is another example of his availability towards acceptance of the oppressed and marginalized. For this behavior of his he was considered the key towards real humanity. The evangelical testimony is univocal. Jesus accepted women, he honored them, he respected them and he valued them. He lived in an androcentric and discriminatory society with regards to women, opposed and humiliated in their fundamental rights as people: women were property, first of their fathers, then of their husbands; they did not have the right to testify; they could not learn the Tora.

In this restricting atmosphere, Jesus acted without animosity, but with freedom and courage. He brought forth women, he cured them, he does not discriminate towards foreigners (he cures the daughter of the woman who was Syro-Phenician: Mk 7,24-30), he overcomes the taboos of their legal impurity (he heals the hemorrahagic: Mk 5,34), he uses them as examples (he praises the poor widow: Mk 12,41-44), he establishes a friendship (he is aquatinted with Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus: Lk 10,38-42; Jn 11).

An unusual novelty is given to the merciful attachment of Jesus towards those women, who were insulted because they were sinners or adulteresses, such as the public sinner who entered in the house of the Pharisees to wash and perfume his feet (Lk 7,37-47) or the woman caught in flagrant adultery (Jn 8,3-11).

6. The Samaritan

An important example is that of his discussion with the Samaritan. It deals with a woman, a non-Jew and a notorious sinner, from the moment that she had had five husbands and the man with whom she lived at the time was not her husband. It is a particularly grave situation, such that even the disciples «were shocked that he should speak with a woman» (Jn 4,27). Notwithstanding, Jesus spent time with her, he showed her the mystery of the Father, that of the adoration of the trinity and the secret of himself: «Woman believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, [...]» The woman answered: «I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things». Jesus said to her: «I who speak to you am he»(cf. Jn 4,21-26).

For Jesus, woman was equally as capable as man to penetrate the great religious truths, to accept them, to live them and by their turn to announce them. The Samaritan, in fact becomes a disciple and messenger of the inhabitants in her village: «Many Samaritans of that city, believed in him for the words of the woman» (Jn 4,39). Of the rest, even Martha, Lazarus' sister, emits, like Peter, an enthusiastic profession of faith: «Yes, O Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, Son of God, who must come to the world» (Jn 11,27).

The women, with Jesus, become once again of age and win the apartheid of their culture. It was those women who accompanied him to the cross without betraying him (cf. Mt 27,55). For this faith, Jesus gave hem the joy of being the first to announce his resurrection. Appearing to Magdalene, Jesus entrusts his first glorious message: «Mary of Magdalene went and said to the disciples: "I have seen the Lord" and she had told them that he had said these things to her» (Jn 20,18).

7. The secret behind the behavior of Jesus

In analyzing deep psychology, the behavior of Jesus is graded very highly: it is the attitude of a balanced man, and extraordinarily harmonious. The source of this kind of behavior is neither the culture of the times, strongly androcentric, nor is it the simple opposition to this culture.

In fact, Jesus obeys the laws of creation and of redemption. His criteria of evaluation is the reality of the "beginning," that of equal dignity and nobility of man and of woman (cf. Jn 1,27). For those who speak of libel of repudiation allowed by Moses, Jesus responds that "at the beginning" (cf. Mk 10,6) it was not like this. He knows the reality of creation and that not only man, but also women are the image of God. He knows also that the image of the human person, deformed by sin, is restored by his mystery of incarnation. His basis therefore is the reality of the beginning and that of the fullness of time: it is in fact through his mystery that men and women can regain the splendor of their authentic image as children of God, with equal dignity and nobility. In Jesus «there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female» (Gal 3,28).