“Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” Hearing Jesus preach must have been a remarkable experience. We can be envious of those who had the opportunity to do so. However, my old scripture professor once said, If we could trade the four gospels that have in exchange for a video tape of all that Jesus said and did, we would not make the trade. His point was that the four gospels are richer and deeper than the mere reporting of the words and actions of Jesus. Certainly the core of the four gospels is a account of the public ministry of Jesus. But, since the gospels were written fifty or more years after the events themselves, we also can discover how those first two or three generations of Christians remembered and told the story of Jesus. We get intimations of their faith. In addition, the evangelists took the material they received and told the story in a particular way to help later generations come to faith. That we have all three of these elements as part of the four gospels — what Jesus said and did, how the Church remembered and preached, and the evangelists’ theological reflection — could make those first generation of Christians envious of us!
