question of the week:  
Who was the first person alive?

answer:  
The first person alive was Adam. We are told in the book of Genesis 2:7, in the first book of the Bible, that God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed His own life into him. That was Adam. Then, God made the first woman, Eve, from Adam. They were the original people of earth. They got to live in a beautiful garden and talk with God! Isn’t that cool!

• How do we know there is a heaven?
• Who made Jesus die on the cross?
• If Jesus died for us on a cross, why is the cross a good symbol now?
• If God made the world and everything in it, then who made God?
• Who is God?
• If the Jews were waiting for a Messiah, why did they not follow Jesus?
• Did Jesus ever play sports?
• How does God communicate with us?
• Who was the first person alive?

First, we ask ourselves do we believe Jesus was real? Then, we ask, if he was real, do we really believe he was who he said he was, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity?

Now, having answered those questions, we can answer our question about heaven. You see, since we believe Jesus was real and really the Son of God, then what he spoke has to be true. God doesn’t lie.

Jesus himself told the disciples in the gospel of John 14:1- 3 :

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Only Jesus “made” himself die on the cross. Technically, the Jewish leaders worked with the Roman leaders to catch and kill Jesus, and to convince all the people he needed to be killed.

However, Jesus was the Son of God. He could have stopped it at any point. But he did not. He allowed it to happen out of great love and sacrifice for all of us. He knew that by his freely-offered death, all sin could be forgiven.

So, in one way, we all caused Jesus to die on the cross, since he died for our sins so that we could be forgiven and able to live with God forever.

In the end, it was Jesus’ choice.

The cross is the symbol of Christianity, of following Jesus. We feel many things about the cross. It is sad – it is how Jesus died. It is good – it is how we were saved. It is amazing – that God loved us so much that His own son would die this way, just for us!

We remember the cross with great sadness, especially on Good Friday. Jesus took our own sins, sins that belong to you and to me, and died on the cross, out of love for each one of us. It makes us feel sad for the times we have done wrong. It makes us sad that Jesus had to suffer.

We also remember the cross with joy and amazement. God’s love for us is so great that he would die a hard death just to help us. Jesus took our sins with him on the cross. Just as Jesus died, so did our sins. So, we can claim the power of the cross to help us be better people, since we know that Jesus was victorious over sin and death. Jesus died for us, yes, but he also rose again. He conquered death and opened the way to heaven for us. He showed us that sadness and suffering and death are not the end. We know we are not alone – God knows what it means to suffer. Now he is in heaven and can help us even more!

The cross for Christians is a great symbol of God’s love for us.

In short, no one made God! God has always been. In our created world, everything has a beginning and an end. Everything has a maker or creator. That is our human experience. So trying to understand how God can exist, and never have been “made” or “created”…well, it is hard to grasp!

God is not human. He is not something that was “made”. He is the “maker”. We say God has no beginning, no middle, and no end. In the book of Genesis, in the Bible, we read about the creation of the world. First there was nothing. Then God created a heaven and an earth. Right after this God created “day” and “night”. This is the beginning of what we know as “time”. See, time is a human, earthly, created thing. God made day and night and the rhythm of the hours so that his creation would have order.

God created time. He rules time. He is not subject to time – so there are no “hours” or “days” for God. No “beginning” and no “end”. He just “is”! He has, for our human way of thinking, always existed.

God is so big and so powerful, we often have a hard time explaining who He is. We have to put it in words we can understand and identify with.

God is the maker and creator of all things. He is the Healer. He is the Father of us all. God is our refuge and our strength. God is our help.

Most of Jesus’ disciples were Jews. They believed he was the Messiah. Many did not.

The Jewish people had been waiting for a Messiah, or savior, for thousands of years. They believed he would come. In hard times, like wars, persecution, or famines – when they most wanted to lose hope- they remembered that a Savior would come and free them all. It helped them be faithful to God and to live in difficult times.

The Old Testament is full of scriptures about the promised Messiah. The Messiah would free the Hebrew or Jewish people from their enemies; he would crush their enemies under their feet. He would cast down the wicked and honor the lowly. People that cheated or lied or lived bad lives would be in trouble. The poor would be taken care of and the sick would be healed.

They kind of thought that the Messiah would be a mighty warrior who would gather and lead his people into a battle that would end all wrong-doing forever, and would prove to the whole earth that there was only one God, and the Jews were His chosen people. The Jewish people often had been enslaved, and the promised Messiah would free them forever. At the time Jesus was born, the area where the Jewish people lived was under the rule of the Roman Empire. The Romans watched the Jews carefully, and were not always nice.

But the Messiah they expected was different than what came. Jesus did come to free them, but he freed them from sin, not earthly rulers. Jesus healed and performed miracles, but he did not end all illness and disease. He did not stop all the bad people, nor did he stop bad things from sometimes happening. Jesus preached peace; He did not lead any wars. Instead of showing the world that the Jews were God’s only chosen people, Jesus taught that all were God’s children and accepted by God.

Many of the Jews had known Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary. How could a kingly Messiah be born into a poor humble family whose parents were just regular people, not important citizens? And finally, Jesus was killed on the cross by the Romans and Jews. If he had been a mighty warrior and Savior, he could have shown his power by stopping it, by getting down off the cross, or by overthrowing the Roman leaders when they tried to kill him. Then all who saw this would believe.

It took great faith to believe Jesus was the Messiah. He was so different than what was expected. That is why only a small group of people thought he was God’s Son, the promised one. But those people continued to tell others about Jesus, and to teach His teachings. They helped others to believe, and then they helped others, and so on until many people became Christian!

Jesus is not only fully God, he is fully human. That means he did lots of normal, everyday things. Also, the Bible tells us about Jesus’ birth and it tells us stories of when he was all grown up. That leaves a lot of in-between we do not know anything about. We can guess that the reason the Bible does not tell us is because Jesus just was doing a lot of normal, kid things -like playing with his friends. Kids from the beginning of time have played all sorts of games and all sorts of sports. So, did Jesus play sports? He may not have played the same sports you do today, but he most probably played games, and sports, with his friends.

God communicates with us in many different ways. God has communicated with us through the Bible. When we read the Bible, we hear how God has worked in the past, and learn how God wants us to live now as His children.

As Catholics, we believe God also communicates to us through the Church, what is called the Magesterium. The Magesterium helps to interpret how we live as God’s people in the modern world.

God also communicates through us through Sacred Tradition. This is like a link which connects us to the faith of old, that forms a long continuous bridge of beliefs and actions.

God also communicates to us through others. The wisdom of the Holy Spirit is in each person, and as we live within the larger community, we can learn how to hear the Spirit speaking to us through those around us.

Lastly, God communicates to us through prayer, in our hearts. It is not usually so much the loud voice of God that speaks, but when we come to God in prayer, we learn to “hear” him. He might help us to feel peace about a decision we have to make, or give us courage to do what is right.

The first person alive was Adam. We are told in the book of Genesis 2:7, in the first book of the Bible, that God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed His own life into him. That was Adam. Then, God made the first woman, Eve, from Adam. They were the original people of earth. They got to live in a beautiful garden and talk with God! Isn’t that cool!