According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, paradox is “a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement, even if actually well-founded”. Paradox becomes powerful when the more it looks self-contradictory or essentially absurd the more it highlights the truth it tries to purport. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, remains one of the most paradoxical people in the entire human history.

To begin with, as Saint Paul told us, Jesus Christ “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2, 6-8). The King of kings was conceived in a Virgin’s womb out of wedlock. As soon as he was born he was put in a manger “because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk , 7-8). From his early days he had to run for his life because King Herod wanted to kill him. He came from a town, Nazareth, where nothing good came out of it (see Jn 1, 46). If his person was a classic paradox no wonder then that his teaching was not paradoxical in itself.

For Jesus love can be attained when it is given unreservedly. “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10, 39). The humblest and the powerless are the ones who will attain authority. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt 5, 5). Here Jesus echoes what is found in Psalm 37, “But the meek shall possess the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity” (Ps 37, 11). Jesus’ teaching portrays its paradoxical nature when it provokes division within the same family, due to acceptance or rejection of his message.

“Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” (Lk 12, 51-53).

The culmination of Jesus’ paradoxical life occurred when he, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1, 29), the innocent one (see Lk 23, 47), was condemned and crucified as the most abhorrent criminal on the planet. No wonder that Jesus’ death on the cross was “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor, 1, 23). However, it is “those who believe” (1 Cor 1, 21) in him that can really know who Jesus is and what he did for us and our salvation. The following spontaneous and joyful declaration by Jesus keeps accentuating not only his paradoxical nature, that of being the Man-God, but also the paradoxical agenda of his Father in heaven as well. “”I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will” (Matt 11, 25-26).

Jesus’ paradoxical violent death on the cross earned for Him his glorification from the Father and for us the much awaited salvation. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2, 9-11). “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2, 4-7).

Those who closely follow Christ are also invited to embrace his paradoxical way of being. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s words enflesh their singular mode of belonging to Christ. “I have found the paradox that I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love”. Let us then be paradoxical like Jesus, in that where our hurt increased, our love abounded all the more, so that, as our hurt reigned in our death, our love also might reign through our righteousness to our eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Fr Mario Attard

OFM Cap