Gospel Nine for Ten Trivia Quiz

Answer: David

"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
He went in and said to her, 'Rejoice, you who enjoy God's favor! The Lord is with you.'
She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean,
but the angel said to her, 'Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God's favour.
Look! You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David;
he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.'"
Luke 1: 26-33

To say that by the will of God the Child would ascend the throne of David was to invoke the Jewish people's most revered poet, hero and king and, through him, a powerful vision of unity, concord and righteousness. Furthermore, the naming of David as Jesus' ancestor indicated continuity between Israel's golden age and the present troubled time under Roman rule. For a peasant girl, living in a poor country under hostile foreign rule to be told that her baby would grow up to inherit the throne of her people's legendary king is simply mind blowing.

Mary, however, was not only a deeply thoughtful young woman, but an intensely practical one as well. Rather than being overawed by the appearance of the angel of the Lord, unlike other people we read of in Scripture who, when visited by angels, were generally paralyzed with fear, or being carried away by the wonderful visions of her Son's future glory, she asks a simple, rather deflating question. "How can I have a baby? My marriage hasn't been consummated yet."

One imagines the archangel giving a little start, glancing desperately along the unnaturally quiet village street, shifting uncomfortably, scratching his nose, giving his halo an impatient tweak and, finally, clearing his throat and muttering, "Now for it!" before explaining how that crucial bit was to be managed.

Once Mary had it straight in her mind, she became all business.

"Mary said, 'You see before you the Lord's servant, let it happen to me as you have said.' And the angel left her."
Luke 1: 26-38

Answer: I am

"Jesus said: I am the Way; I am Truth and Life. No one can come to the Father except through me."
John 14:6

Elsewhere in his Gospel St. John tells us:

"In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came into being, not one thing came into being except through him.
What has come into being in him was life, life that was the light of men;
and light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it."
John 1: 1-5

Since the Word, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, who "became flesh and dwelt among us", is the means by which the Father, the First Person, executes His creativity, then it stands to reason that it is only through the Word that creation can know and come to the Father.

Through the millennia much blood and ink have been spilled over just exactly what is meant by "No one can come to the Father except through me." Eventually, the Catholic Church came to the eminently sensible conclusion that how God saves each individual soul is a mystery beyond the understanding of us creatures. For quiz takers who may be interested, I recommend "the Catechism of the Catholic Church": PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY SECTION TWO THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH CHAPTER ONE THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION Article 1 THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM VI. The Necessity of Baptism

Answer: Satan

"From then onwards Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day.
Then, taking him aside, Peter started to rebuke him. 'Heaven preserve you, Lord,' he said, 'this must not happen to you.'
But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because you are thinking not as God thinks but as human beings do.'"
Matt 16: 21-23

This was a harsh rebuke for someone who is anxious for the safety and wellbeing of a beloved friend. And yet, Jesus' situation was stark. In order to fulfill His mission, He had to separate Himself from the human perspective. While He was True Man, He was also True God, and the time when He would have to subject his human emotions and needs to the demands of His divine Nature was fast approaching.

Though Peter's demonstration of loving concern must have touched Jesus' heart, at the same time the enormous temptation, offered in all innocence, must have been painful indeed. Coming as it did hard on the heels of yet another display of obtuseness by His followers (see the info for Q. 7), it's no surprise that Peter's remonstrance caught Jesus with unusually threadbare patience, that caused him to speak sharply. Peter, of all his friends and companions, should have understood. That he did not do so must surely have been a grief to Jesus.

Answer: Cana

"On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there,
and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited.
And they ran out of wine, since the wine provided for the feast had all been used, and the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.'
Jesus said, 'Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not come yet.'
His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.'
There were six stone water jars standing there, meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews: each could hold twenty or thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water,' and they filled them to the brim.
Then he said to them, 'Draw some out now and take it to the president of the feast.'
They did this; the president tasted the water, and it had turned into wine. Having no idea where it came from -- though the servants who had drawn the water knew -- the president of the feast called the bridegroom
and said, 'Everyone serves good wine first and the worse wine when the guests are well wined; but you have kept the best wine till now.'
This was the first of Jesus' signs: it was at Cana in Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him."
John 2: 1-11

It has always seemed to me that either part of the dialogue between Jesus and His Mother or her inner thoughts on the situation must be missing from this scene. In any case, she clearly has supreme confidence that her boy will do what he's told. You can almost hear His sigh as He turns to the servants.

Compared to healing the sick and possessed or raising the dead, changing water into wine may seem frivolous, even petty. Consider, though, His connection with wine at the end of His earthly ministry, during the institution of the Holy Mass at the Last Supper. His last miracle was to change wine into His own Most Precious Blood, the last and best of all Wine, commemorating His Passion and Death and, by these, His commitment of Himself as the Eternal Bridegroom to His bride, the Church. It is fitting, then, for his first miracle to have been changing water into wine for the celebration of an earthly wedding.

Answer: Inn

"And now a lawyer stood up and, to test him, asked, 'Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?'
He said to him, 'What is written in the Law? What is your reading of it?'
He replied, 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.'
Jesus said to him, 'You have answered right, do this and life is yours.'
But the man was anxious to justify himself and said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbour?'
In answer Jesus said, 'A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of bandits; they stripped him, beat him and then made off, leaving him half dead.
Now a priest happened to be travelling down the same road, but when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
In the same way a Levite who came to the place saw him, and passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan traveller who came on him was moved with compassion when he saw him.
He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. He then lifted him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him.
Next day, he took out two denarii and handed them to the innkeeper and said, "Look after him, and on my way back I will make good any extra expense you have."
Which of these three, do you think, proved himself a neighbour to the man who fell into the bandits' hands?'
He replied, 'The one who showed pity towards him.' Jesus said to him, 'Go, and do the same yourself.'"
Luke 10: 25-37

As with the account of the Annunciation, familiarity has bred complacence to the point that we hear the parable of the Good Samaritan without listening to it. Jesus is not telling a Hallmark Christmas Movie style tale, designed to gently encourage us all to love one another, with a happily ever after ending that leaves the audience smiling.

"The flavor of the parable would probably be best captured in modern America if we had a white southern farmer left for dead, if we then had him ignored by a minister and a sheriff, and saved by a negro sharecropper. Then the question, 'Which now of these three... was neighbor?' would have a sharper point for our time."
Isaac Asimov from "Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old and New Testaments": The New Testament Chapter Seven, pp. 944-5

With this parable, Jesus imparts the radical truth that all men, including those our culture has taught us to hate and fear, are our neighbors and that, moreover, we have a God given responsibility to love and care for them. This responsibility, integral as it is to the practicing Christian's love of God, is just as counter cultural today as it was in First Century Israel.

Answer: Palm

"The next day the great crowd of people who had come up for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.
They took branches of palm and went out to receive him, shouting: 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel.'"
John 12: 12-13

The Synoptic Gospels render the scene in detail, describing the cheering crowds laying their cloaks in the road before Jesus' mount and strewing it with branches. Only St. John, however, specifies palm branches.

Rather than with pomp and ceremony, Jesus accomplishes His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem riding on the unbroken colt of a donkey. This unlikely, and probably unruly, mount was dictated, not by practical considerations, but in order that ancient prophecy might be fulfilled:

"Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion! Shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem! Look, your king is approaching, he is vindicated and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem; the bow of war will be banished. He will proclaim peace to the nations, his empire will stretch from sea to sea, from the River to the limits of the earth."
Zechariah 9: 9-10

The prophet Zechariah, who began his ministry in 520 B.C., the same year as Haggai, during the time of return and rebuilding after the Exile or Babylonian Captivity, experienced a series of visions, granted by an angel, of the suffering of his people and of the coming restoration of the kingdom of Judah. Although Biblical scholars ascribe the prophecy cited in all four Gospels to a later writer living in different circumstances, it is perhaps more apt for that, since in this context the messiah comes after a period of intense war, gentle and bringing universal peace.

Answer: Loaves

The Gospels record two occasions when Jesus fed large crowds with loaves and fishes. On the first known as the Miracle of the Five Thousand (see Matt 14:13-21, Mark 6:41-4, Luke 9: 10-17, John 6: 11-4), Jesus directs his companions to distribute five loaves and two fish that He had blessed to the tired and hungry crowd that had followed him to a desolate place. To their astonishment, there was enough and to spare, with twelve baskets of leftovers. In the second, known as the Miracle of the Four Thousand (see Matt 15: 32-9, Mark 8: 1-9), He similarly blessed and broke seven loaves and a few small fish, with the leftovers filling seven baskets. Moreover, He reminds them of these occasions shortly before his final journey to Jerusalem:

"The disciples, having crossed to the other side, had forgotten to take any food.
Jesus said to them, 'Keep your eyes open, and be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.'
And they said among themselves, 'It is because we have not brought any bread.'
Jesus knew it, and he said, 'You have so little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread?
Do you still not understand? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and the number of baskets you collected?
Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and the number of baskets you collected?
How could you fail to understand that I was not talking about bread? What I said was: Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.'
Then they understood that he was telling them to be on their guard, not against yeast for making bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
Matt 16:5-12

Answer: Elijah

Recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matt 17: 1-8, Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9: 28-36) in the Transfiguration, Jesus revealed a glimpse of his true glory to his closest friends, Peter, James and John. He was accompanied by Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah, representing the Prophets, the two principal divisions of the Jewish Scriptures. Most awe inspiringly a voice sounded from Heaven, as at the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, naming Jesus as God's beloved Son.

Answer: Silver

"Then one of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests
and said, 'What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?' They paid him thirty silver pieces,
and from then onwards he began to look for an opportunity to betray him."
Matt 26: 14-6

Although all four Gospels record that the chief priests paid Judas to betray Jesus to them, the specific price appears only in St. Matthew.

It is often said that Judas was motivated by greed. And yet, thirty pieces of silver was a paltry sum with historic resonance that would - one would think - be distasteful if not downright insulting to someone preparing to betray a friend to his death. In Exodus 21:32, we read that 30 pieces of silver was the legal restitution required to be paid to a master if a slave was accidentally killed by an ox. A slave? Killed accidentally? By an ox?! For all His emphasis on service, Jesus could in no way be considered a slave. His death would be the result of careful planning, rather than chance or misadventure. Moreover, it would be brought about by conscious, deliberate human agency, rather than the actions of a dumb beast. So, any way you looked at it, this price was totally inappropriate.

At the same time, there's more going on here than appears on the surface.

"Yahweh my God says this, 'Pasture the sheep for slaughter,
whose buyers kill them and go unpunished, whose sellers say of them, "Blessed be Yahweh; now I am rich!" and whose own shepherds show them no pity.
For I shall show no further pity for the inhabitants of the country -- Yahweh declares! Instead, I shall put everyone into the clutches of a neighbour, into the clutches of the king. They will crush the country and I shall not rescue anyone from their clutches.'
Then I pastured for slaughter the sheep belonging to the sheep-dealers. I took two staves: the one I called 'Goodwill', the other 'Couplers'; and I pastured the sheep myself,
getting rid of three shepherds in one month. But I lost patience with them, and they equally detested me.
I then said, 'I am not going to pasture you any more; the one doomed to die can die; the one doomed to perish can perish; and the rest can devour one another.'
I then took my staff, 'Goodwill', and broke it in half, to break my covenant, which I had made with all the peoples.
When it was broken, that day the sheep-dealers, who were watching me, realised that this had been a word of Yahweh.
I then said to them, 'If you see fit, give me my wages; if not, never mind.' So they weighed out my wages: thirty shekels of silver.
Yahweh said to me, 'Throw it to the smelter, this princely sum at which they have valued me!' Taking the thirty shekels of silver, I threw them into the Temple of Yahweh, for the smelter."
Zechariah 11: 4-13

St Matthew, the Evangelist most deeply interested in Jewish history and prophecy, draws a direct correlation between this incident, in which those charged with caring for the sheep (the people) valued the prophet and through him God Himself at the price of an accidentally killed slave and what the Jewish officials were willing to value Jesus' life at. One can almost see Judas as Jesus' proxy, determining that the chief priests of His time thought just as little of Him as those some six hundred years before thought of the prophet who brought God's word to the people.

We can never know Judas' motives for betraying Jesus to the Jewish authorities. We do know he repented and, in remorse and despair, he took his own life. Despite this seemingly final act, we can have hope for his soul, looking to an ancient tradition that Jesus forgave and redeemed His betrayer.

On the south side of the nave of the Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene in Vézelay, France, built between A.D. 1120 and 1150, can be found a beautiful and apparently unique carving atop a column. About 65 feet (20 meters) in the air on the south side of the nave, on Capital #79 are two connected scenes. The first shows Judas hanging himself. The second shows Jesus carrying Judas over His shoulders like a lost sheep. The two figures share a subtle smile, symbolizing God's mercy.
We are only creatures, and so can't imagine how such a thing can come to be. But, for God, all things are possible.

Answer: Disciples

Generally speaking, a disciple is one who follows a master, studies his teachings and attempts to conform their life to his. Specifically in Christianity, a disciple follows the teachings and imitates the life of Jesus Christ.

In Roman Catholic practice - the one that, as a Catholic myself, I am most familiar with - there are three core phases of Discipleship:
Encounter: A personal, life-changing experience with the love of Jesus Christ.
Grow: Actively learning His teachings through prayer, the Sacraments and Scripture.
Serve: Putting your faith into action by loving others and sharing your faith.