1. We read in the Second Vatican Council’s constitution *Lumen Gentium* concerning the earthly mission of Jesus Christ: “Thus came the Son, sent by the Father, who in him, before the foundation of the world, chose us and predestined us to be adopted as his children, because in him he wished to bring all things together (cf. Eph 1:4–5, 10). Therefore, Christ, in order to fulfil the Father’s will, inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and revealed the mystery of himself to us, and through his obedience brought about our redemption” (Lumen Gentium, 3).
This text enables us to summarise everything we have discussed in our recent catechesis. In those sessions, we have sought to highlight the essential aspects of Christ’s messianic mission. Now the conciliar text reaffirms the truth of the close and profound connection that exists between this mission and the One sent, Christ himself, who, in fulfilling it, reveals his personal dispositions and gifts. Indeed, certain fundamental characteristics can be discerned throughout Jesus’ conduct; these are also expressed in his preaching and serve to lend full credibility to his messianic mission.
2. In his preaching and conduct, Jesus demonstrates, first and foremost, his profound union with the Father in thought and word. What he wishes to convey to his listeners (and to all humanity) comes from the Father who ‘sent him into the world’ (Jn 10:36). ‘For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me—he himself has commanded me what I must say and proclaim. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. The things, therefore, that I say, I say just as the Father has told me’ (Jn 12:49–50). ‘As the Father has taught me, so I speak’ (Jn 8:28). So we read in the Gospel of John. But a similar statement by Jesus is also recorded in the Synoptic Gospels: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father” (Mt 11:27), and by that “all things” Jesus is expressly referring to the content of the revelation he brought to mankind (cf. Mt 11:25–27; cf. Lk 10:21–22). In these words of Jesus we find the manifestation of the spirit with which he carries out his preaching. He is and remains the ‘faithful witness’ (Rev 1:5). Included in and highlighted by this witness is that particular ‘obedience’ of the Son to the Father, which at its climax will prove to be ‘obedience unto death’ (cf. Phil 2:8).
3. In his preaching, Jesus also demonstrates that his absolute fidelity to the Father—as the first and last source of ‘all’ that is to be revealed—is the essential foundation of his truthfulness and credibility. ‘My teaching is not my own, but comes from the one who sent me,’ says Jesus, and he adds: ‘Whoever speaks on his own seeks his own glory; but whoever seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him’ (Jn 7:16, 18). Coming from the mouth of the Son of God, such words may seem surprising. For they are spoken by the One who is ‘of the same substance as the Father’. Yet we must not forget that he also speaks as a man. He is keen to ensure that his listeners harbour no doubt whatsoever on a fundamental point: namely, that the truth he conveys is divine and comes from God. He is keen to ensure that people, as they listen to him, find in his word access to the very divine source of revealed truth. That they do not focus solely on the one who teaches, nor allow themselves to be captivated by the ‘originality’ and ‘extraordinariness’ of what, in this doctrine, comes from the Master himself. The Master “does not seek his own glory”. He seeks solely and exclusively “the glory of the one who sent him”. He does not speak “in his own name”, but in the name of the Father.
This, too, is an aspect of “self-emptying” (“kenosis”), which, according to Saint Paul (cf. Phil 2:7), will reach its culmination in the mystery of the Cross.
4. Christ is the “faithful witness”. This faithfulness – in the exclusive pursuit of the Father’s glory, not his own – springs from the love he intends to show: “The world must know that I love the Father” (Jn 14:31). But his revelation of love for the Father also includes his love for humankind. Indeed, he “went about doing good” (cf. Acts 10:38). His entire earthly mission is filled with acts of love towards humanity, especially the least and the needy. “Come to me,” he invites, “all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). ‘Come’: this is an exhortation that extends beyond the circle of contemporaries whom Jesus was able to meet during his life and suffering on earth; it is a call to the poor of all times, ever relevant even today, ever renewed on the lips and in the heart of the Church.
5. Alongside this exhortation, there is another: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29). Jesus’ gentleness and humanity become a draw for those called to enter his school: “Learn from me”. Jesus is the ‘faithful witness’ to the love that God has for humankind. In his witness, divine truth and divine love are united. For this reason, there is a profound cohesion—one might almost say homogeneity—between his words and his actions, between what he does and what he teaches. Jesus not only teaches love as the supreme commandment, but fulfils it himself in the most perfect way. He not only proclaims the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, but embodies them in himself throughout his life. He not only demands that we love our enemies, but fulfils this himself, above all at the hour of his crucifixion: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ (Lk 23:34).
6. Yet that ‘meekness and humility of heart’ in no way implies weakness. On the contrary, Jesus is demanding. His Gospel is demanding. Is it not he himself who admonishes: ‘Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me’? And shortly afterwards: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Mt 10:38–39). It is a kind of radicalism not only in the language of the Gospel, but also in the real demands of following Christ, the full extent of which he does not hesitate to reiterate frequently: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace,” he says one day, “but a sword” (Mt 10:34). It is a powerful way of saying that the Gospel is also a source of “unease” for humankind, Jesus wants us to understand that the Gospel is demanding, and that to be demanding means to stir consciences, not to allow them to settle into a false ‘peace’, in which they become increasingly insensitive and dull-witted, so that spiritual realities are stripped of their value and lose all resonance within them. Jesus will say before Pilate: ‘I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth’ (John 18:37). These words also concern the light he sheds upon the whole realm of human actions, dispelling the darkness of thoughts and especially of consciences, so that truth may triumph in every person. It is, however, a matter of taking the side of truth. “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice,” Jesus will say (John 18:37). This is why Jesus is demanding. Not harsh or relentlessly severe, but firm and unequivocal in calling everyone to a life in the truth.
7. Thus the demands of Christ’s Gospel penetrate the realm of law and morality. He who is the ‘faithful witness’ (Rev 1:5) to divine truth, to the truth of the Father, says right at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Whoever therefore breaks one of these commandments, even the least of them, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven’ (Mt 5:19). And in exhorting people to conversion, he does not hesitate to rebuke the very towns where people refuse to believe: ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!’ (Lk 10:13), whilst warning each and every one: ‘… unless you repent, you will all perish’ (Lk 13:3).
8. Thus, the Gospel of meekness and humility goes hand in hand with the Gospel of moral demands, and even of severe warnings to those who refuse to repent. There is no contradiction between the two. Jesus lives by the truth he proclaims and the love he reveals, and this is a love as demanding as the truth from which it springs. Moreover, love placed the greatest demands on Jesus himself in the hour of Gethsemane, in the hour of Calvary, in the hour of the cross. Jesus accepted and fulfilled these demands to the very end, for, as the evangelist tells us, he ‘loved them to the very end’ (Jn 13:1). It was a faithful love, by virtue of which, on the day before his death, he could say to the Father: ‘The words you gave me I have given to them’ (Jn 17:8).
9. As a ‘faithful witness’, Jesus fulfilled the mission he had received from the Father in the depths of the Trinitarian mystery. It was an eternal mission, contained within the mind of the Father who begot him and predestined him to fulfil it ‘in the fullness of time’ for the salvation of humankind—of every human being—and for the perfect good of all creation. Jesus was fully aware that his mission lay at the heart of the Father’s plan of creation and redemption; and therefore, with all the realism of the truth and love he brought into the world, he could say: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32).
[John Paul II, General Audience, 8 June 1988]