If I had a friend who didn't know who Jesus was, and he was actually curious about why I cared about this messiah so much, I'd try to structure my introduction a little like this...
I would start off by briefly explaining the concept of God (If he doesn't know a thing about Jesus, then we need to start at the beginning.) God existed before the universe, created it, created man, and has been working on our behalf ever since. Jesus is, or was, because he existed as and with God before, a replacement for an old covenant God established with us, a man created directly by the creator, who was himself fully God. That sounds crazy, so I'd seek to elaborate on Jesus' nature a little bit. Jesus was fully human, that is, with a physical body and a human soul, but yet he was made by God, and fully possessed his spirit, too. He dealt with and struggled against the same things we do, but he was directly in sync with his father, God, guided for our sake. Additionally, he had a two-pronged mission: firstly to show the world who and what he was. It's easy to find the concept of God a little out-of-touch. After all, it's asking someone to believe in some faraway, all-powerful something that cannot be seen, touched, or even imagined. Whether this something is benevolent or not, he seems far too distant to matter. That's why God put himself on our planet, to show in the most relateable form possible who he was and why he mattered. The key word is relateable; God could have revealed his true power and blinded us all into submission, but it was much more loving and significant to humble himself into one of us. Jesus was limited in the same ways we are, and yet carried in his blood the power of God. That's the key to the second part of God's mission: we as humans don't and can't live up to God's standards; we aren't perfect like he is. We needed, one way or another, to be atoned for. While Jesus spent two years spreading the human image of God, it is the last two months or so of his life we remember most. The punishment for our imperfect lives is irretrievable death, so to prevent us from that fate, God himself died. Woah, that's a big deal. Jesus, being human and mortal, allowed himself to be tortured and killed, dying a criminal's death despite his innocence, so that we wouldn't have to. I really hope my friend is tracking with me, or else he'll miss the best part. It doesn't end there, because Jesus is alive with God today. How? Well, if Jesus had remained dead, there would be no victory over death; it won over Jesus. That's where the God-part of him comes in. Three days after he died, he came back to life: resurrected. Only Jesus was brought back from the dead by God's direct will, and his physical destiny was fulfilled for us all forever. Kind of a big deal.
I hope that at least establishes what's important and why it's important for my Jesus-less friend. For me, I think the most important part of Jesus' life is that God was trying to make a point: I care about you guys, enough to myself come down and hang out with you. That's why Jesus' humanity, his deity, and his power all matter; without any of those the story falls apart.
No comments:
Post a Comment