1. Creed 16 And became man. And He was crucified for us under the reign of Pontius Pilot

2. Introduction The Creed does not mention details about Christ life, only incarnation, Pascha (cross and resurrection), and the ascension In each Eucharist we celebrate Christ life and await His coming (Amen amen amen, Your death O Lord we proclaim…) The church in its liturgical year celebrates the “Lord’s feasts” which are major and minor

3. Major Feasts 1.Holy Nativity 2.The Annunciation 3.Theophany 4.Entry into Jerusalem – Palm Sunday 5.Resurrection 6.Ascension 7.Pentecost

4. Minor Feasts 1.The Circumcision 2.The Presentation to the Temple 3.The Wedding at Cana 4.Transfiguration 5.The flight to Egypt 6.Holy Thursday 7.Thomas Sunday

5. Christ Life Recapitulates the Redemptive Work of the Father The gospels did not include all the details about Christ’s life, only those needed so that “we may believe and through believing we may have life in His name” (John 20:31) Christ deeds, miracles and words all reveal that in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col 2:9). What was visible in His earthly life leads to the invisible mystery of His divine Sonship and redemptive mission

6. Christ Life Christ whole earthly life – His words and deeds, His silences and sufferings, indeed His manner of being and speaking – is revelation of the Father. Jesus can say: “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father,” and the Father can say: “This is My Son, My chosen, listen to Him” (John 14:9, Luke 9:35).

7. Our Partaking of Christ Life All Christ’s riches are for every individual and everybody’s property. Christ did not live His life for Himself, but “for us men and for our salvation.” His death was “for our sins” and His resurrection “for our justification” (Rom 4:25). He is still “our advocate with the Father,” who “always lives to make intercession” for us (1 John 2:1, Hebrew 7:25). He remains ever “in the presence of God on our behalf bringing before Him all that He lived and suffered for us” (Hebrews 9:24).

8. Christ Life is Our Model He is the “perfect man” (Rom 15:5) who invites us to become His disciples and follow Him Christ enables us to live in Him all that He Himself lived, and He lives it in us

9. 1. Our Lord’s Infancy The coming of God’s Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything converge on Christ: 1. all the rituals 2. sacrifices 3. figures 4. symbols of the first covenant (Hebrews 9:15) 5. He announces Him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel (St. John the Baptist is the Lord’s immediate precursor or forerunner has a special place as “the greatest among those born from women who comes in the spirit of Elijah.” He is the bridegroom’s friend who would introduce the Lamb of God to Israel. Luke 1:17, Mark 6:17-29) 6. He awakens in the hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of His coming

10. 1. Our Lord’s Infancy In the month of Kiahk as the church celebrates the Advent, the first chapter of St. Luke gospel is divided among the 4 Sundays. In it the church reads the account of St. John’s inauguration of the gospel from his mother’s womb The holy Nativity, Jesus’ humble birth, is celebrated with a reminder that “who was born of the Father before all ages came and took flesh from the virgin.”

11. 1. Our Lord’s Infancy The Magi, representatives of the neighboring pagan religions, when they come to visit Christ and worship Him, their coming represents the sharing of the nations in the promise of the Messiah. The Church has a special song of the glory of that night: “The Virgin today brings into the world the Eternal and the earth offers a cave to the Inaccessible. The angels and shepherds praise Him and the magi advance with the star, for You are born for us, Little Child, God eternal!” – Kontakion of Romanos the Melodist from the 4 th century, sung in Holy Nativity, used also in the Catholic Church

12. 1. Our Lord’s Infancy Our Lord’s circumcision on the 8 th day after His birth is the sign of His incorporation into Abraham’s family in which He will participate throughout His life. Circumcision prefigures that “circumcision of Christ” which is Baptism The presentation of Jesus into the Temple shows Him to be the firstborn Son who belongs to the Lord, an occasion for utterance of prophecies by Anna and Simeon. His cross and St. Mary’s sorrow were recognized along with His Messianic glory

13. 1. Our Lord’s Infancy The flight into Egypt and the massacre of the innocents reveals the opposition of darkness to the Light that came to the world. His departure from Egypt recalls Exodus and present Him as the definite Savior of God’s people. During the greater part of His life, our Lord shared the condition of the vast majority of human beings: a daily life spent without evident greatness, a life of manual labor. His religious life was that of a Jew obedient to the Law of God, a life in the community. The whole period was summarized at the end of the second chapter of St. Luke’s that He was “obedient” to His parents and that He “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and men” Luke 2:51,52.

14. 1. Our Lord’s Infancy Our Lord’s obedience to His mother and legal father fulfills the 5 th commandment and was the temporal image of His filial obedience to His Father in heaven. The everyday obedience of Jesus to Joseph and Mary both announced and anticipated the obedience of Holy Thursday “not My will…” (Luke 22:42). The obedience in the daily routine of His hidden life was already inaugurating His work of restoring what the disobedience of Adam had destroyed (Rom 5:19). Jesus was tempted in everything like us, yet He was totally obedient. Only He can be the mediator for the different kinds of disobediences since He is blameless

15. 1. Our Lord’s Infancy The hidden life at Nazareth allows everyone to enter into fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life. Our Lord sanctified the details of daily living so we can be with Him in every detail of our daily life. The finding of Jesus in the Temple is the only event that breaks the silence of the gospels about the hidden years of our Lord. “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s work?” Luke 2:49, shows His total consecration to a mission that flows from His divine Sonship. St. Mary “kept all these things in her heart” during the years our Lord remained hidden in the silence of an ordinary life

16. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life Our Lord’s public life begins with His baptism by St. John in the Jordan. St. John preaches “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). A crowd of sinners - tax collectors and soldiers, Pharisees and Sadducees, and prostitutes – come to be baptized by him. “Then Jesus appears.” The Baptist hesitates, but Jesus insists and receives baptism. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove comes upon Jesus and a voice from heaven proclaims, “This is My beloved Son” (Matt 3:13-17). This is the revelation of the Trinity and also the revelation of Christ as the Messiah, the anointed One of Israel.

17. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life The baptism of Jesus is on His part the acceptance and the inauguration of His mission as God’s suffering Servant. He allows Himself to be numbered among sinners; He is already “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, Isaiah 53:12). Already He is anticipating the baptism of His bloody death. Already He is coming to “fulfill all righteousness” that is, He is submitting Himself entirely to His Father’s will: out of love He consents to this baptism of death for the remission of our sins (Matt 3:15). The Father’s voice responds to the Son’s acceptance proclaiming His entire delight in His Son (Luke 3:22, Isaiah 42:1). The Spirit whom Jesus possessed in fullness from His conception comes to “rest on Him” (John 1:32-33, Isaiah 11:2). Jesus will be the source of the Spirit for all mankind. At His baptism “the heavens were opened” (Matt 3:16), the heavens that Adam’s sin had closed and the waters were sanctified by the descent of Jesus and the Spirit, a prelude to the new creation.

18. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life Through baptism the Christian is sacramentally assimilated to Jesus (united with Him), who in His own baptism anticipates His death and resurrection. The Christian must enter into this mystery of humble self abasement and repentance, go down into the water with Jesus in the likeness of His burial in order to rise with Him, be reborn of water and the Spirit so as to become the Father’s beloved son in the Son and “walk in the newness of life” (Rom 6:4). The church re-enact the scene of baptism in the liturgy in the offertory stage

19. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life The Fasting and the Temptation on the Mount Our Lord was led by the Spirit after His baptism to the desert for a time of solitude and fasting. He remained 40 days with wild beasts. At the end of this time, Satan tempts Him 3 times, seeking to compromise His filial attitude toward God. Our Lord rebuffs these attacks which recapitulate the temptation of Adam in Paradise and of Israel in the desert. The devil leaves Him until an “opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Christ reveals Himself as God’s Servant, totally obedient to the divine will. His victory in the desert over the tempter anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of His filial love for the Father. Jesus temptations reveals the way in which the Son of God is Messiah, contrary to the way Satan proposes and the way men wishes to attribute to Him. This is why Christ vanquished the tempter for us: “for we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but One who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning” (Hebrews 4:15). By the solemn great lent time, the church unites herself each year to the Lord fasting in the desert.

20. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life The Kingdom of God is at hand “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying: ‘the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15). Now the Father’s will is to gather men to receive from Him eternal life. He does this by gathering men around His Son Jesus Christ. This gathering is the church. Christ stands at the heart of this gathering of men into the “family of God.” He does this by His word, through signs that manifest the reign of God, by sending out His disciples, our Lord calls all people to come together around Him. But above all in the great Paschal mystery His death on the cross and His resurrection “and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32).

21. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life The Invitation to the Kingdom Everyone is called to enter the Kingdom. To enter it, one must first accept our Lord’s word. The word is compared to a seed which is sown in a field, those who hear it with faith and are numbered among the little flock of Christ have truly received the kingdom. Then, by its own power, the seed sprouts and grows until the harvest. The kingdom belongs to the poor and lowly, those who accept it with humble hearts. Our Lord identifies Himself with the poor of every kind and makes active love toward them the condition for entering His kingdom Our Lord invites sinners to the table of the kingdom, “I came not to call the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17, 1 Tim 1:15). The supreme proof of His love for sinners will be the sacrifice of His own life for “the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28).

22. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life Our Lord’s invitation to enter His kingdom comes in the form of parables. One must enter the kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to “know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 13:11). For those who “stay outside” everything remains enigmatic.

23. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life The Signs of the Kingdom Our Lord accompanies His words with many “mighty works and wonders and signs” which manifest that the kingdom is present in Him and attest that He was the promised Messiah (Acts 2:22). The signs worked by Christ attest that the Father has sent Him. They invite belief in Him. Miracles strengthens faith in the One who does His Father’s work. They bear witness that He is the Son of God (John 10:31-38). But also can be an occasion for “offense” (Matt 11:6). Despite His evident miracles some people reject Him; He is even accused of acting by the power of demons (Mark 3:22). Our Lord performed Messianic signs by freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness, evil spirits and death. He did not come to abolish all evils here below, but to free men from the gravest slavery, sin, which troubles mankind in their vocation as God’s children and causes all forms of bondage.

24. 2. Our Lord’s Public Life The coming of God’s kingdom means the defeat of Satan’s. “If it is by the Spirit of God then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:26,28). Jesus exorcisms free some individuals from the domination of demons. They anticipate Jesus great victory over the “ruler of this world” (Luke 12:31). The kingdom of God will be definitely established through Christ’s cross: “God reigned from the wood” (Psalms of 6 th hour).