The Faithful Remnant

God’s plan when he came was to give great blessings, first of all to the Jewish people and then through them to people of every nation, and the greatest blessing of all was to be eternal life with him.  This is what he promised to Abraham at the beginning: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you,…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (NRSV, Genesis 12:2,3).

When Jesus came, however, the welcome that he received was a very terrible one indeed.  He was nailed on a Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem.  But although he was “despised and rejected by others” (NRSV, Isaiah 53:3), there were some who loved him and followed him, and chief among them were his Apostles.  In fact, they were the only people who could now be called the Church or People of God, and so Jesus made a new start with them.

If you build a house the first thing you have to make sure is that the foundation is strong and sound.  So when Jesus rebuilt his Church, his People, he did so on the only part of the Jewish people which remained firm and faithful – on the foundation of the Apostles (Revelation 21:14).

The Christian Church

At the Last Supper, Jesus made a New Covenant or Partnership with the Apostles to replace the Old Covenant made by God with the People of Israel at Mount Sinai.  When Jesus had ascended into Heaven, the blessings which God had promised years before to Abraham began to be given.

On the Day of Pentecost, at nine o’clock in the morning, Jesus sent his Holy Spirit to the Apostles, making them the Christian Church, the New People of God, whose members would be drawn from all nations and races.  The Holy Spirit came, first to the Apostles and then to all those who were baptised and so joined the Church.  In the morning the Church had, besides Our Lady, only 12 members, the 12 Apostles.  By the time the evening came so many people had been baptised that it had grown to 3,000.  That is why Pentecost is often called the Birthday of the Christian Church.

The first people to be baptised were all Jews, but as the Church spread farther and farther, peoples of all nations began to join until now it is to be found all over the world.  So God kept his promise to Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”.

We still remember that the Christian Church goes back to the old Jewish Church because we still read the books of the Old Testament which are the holy books of the old Jewish Church.  We also sing the Psalms which are the hymns of the old Jewish Church.