The Ambition of Jesus

Herbert McCabe writes: “If [Jesus] had wanted something less than the kingdom, if he had been a lesser man, a man not obsessed by love he might have settled for less and achieved it by his own personality, intelligence, and skill.  But he wanted that all men should be as possessed by love as he was, he wanted that they should be divine, and this could only come as gift.  Crucifixion and resurrection, the prayer of Christ and the response of the Father are the archetype and source of all our prayer . . . . But the crucifixion, the total self-abandonment of Jesus to the Father is not just a prayer that Jesus offered, a thing he happened to do.  What the Church came to realize is that it was the revelation of who Jesus is . . . . The deepest reality of Jesus is simply to be of the Father . . . . He is not first of all an individual person who then prays to the Father, his prayer to the Father is what constitutes him as who he is.  He is not just one who prays, not even one who prays best, he is sheer prayer.  In other words, the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus is simply the showing forth, the visibility in human terms, in human history, of tee relationship to the Father which constitutes the person who is Jesus.  The prayer of Jesus which is his crucifixion, his absolute renunciation of himself in love to the Father, is the eternal relationship of Father and Son made available as part of our history.”