Jesus and Christianity
Who is Jesus?
Jesus is a real person who lived as a man in Israel about 2000 years ago. But Jesus was no ordinary man. He was, and still is, the Son of God. While he lived on Earth, Jesus expressed God’s love for people in what he said and did. He did amazing miracles that changed people’s lives for the better. Around the year AD 33, Jesus died on a cross and came back to life, before returning to Heaven.
To understand Jesus and why he lived on Earth, it may help to first understand God and his kingdom. God is the Creator of the universe and all that is in it.
Who is God? What is sin?
God created a perfect world and made human beings in his own image. He wanted to walk and talk with the people he made — to be in relationship with them, because God is a relational being. He created people with their own free will, not wanting to force them to choose him, but desiring a real, two-way relationship with them.
Adam and Eve (the first people God created) enjoyed this amazing relationship with God for a time, but things changed. Adam and Eve were tempted to use their free will to choose pride, power and selfish desire over their Heavenly Father, God. Sadly, they gave in to this temptation. Rather than being in relationship with God, they chose to push him away and take his place as Lord and King of the world he made.
Sin entered the world — a mortal wound that broke the relationship between God and people. Life on Earth was no longer as it was created to be. People became selfish, unkind and hurtful to one another. Pain and sickness became part of life in a world that had fallen apart. Separation from God was a life sentence for our world. Separation forever.
But God’s love couldn’t be beaten so easily. Because he so loved the sons and daughters he created, he wanted to restore the relationship and offer his people forgiveness. He wanted to restore his image in his children so they could experience the life he originally created for them. God wanted to save us from eternal separation from him, and swap it for a new life with him. A life walking with him here on Earth and everlasting life with him in Heaven.
God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son,
God sent Jesus — his Son — to repair the broken relationship between us.
Jesus is God in the flesh. One of the names of Jesus is “Immanuel”, which means “God with us”. God, here on Earth, with us. At Christmas, we celebrate Jesus coming into the world as a baby. He was God and he was also human. His birth was the beginning of the fulfilment of God’s plan to restore his relationship with his children.
What did Jesus do on Earth?
When Jesus was 30 years old, he began a public ministry. He talked to people in many cities and towns about God’s love and God’s Kingdom — his way of life. Jesus wanted everyone to know of his love for them. He sat down with, talked to and cared for people of all ages and backgrounds. He welcomed people with generosity and kindness. He healed people from sicknesses, journeyed alongside them in their pain and gave them hope.
After three years of ministry, Jesus died on a cross. Jesus knew this was part of God’s plan. He willingly offered up his life to give us new life, because of his great love for us. Through his death, he took on all the pain, sin and everything that is wrong in our world, even though he did nothing wrong. Everything anyone had ever done, or would ever do wrong, was put to death with him on the cross. We couldn’t have saved ourselves, so Jesus died in our place. He saved us from separation from God and restored our relationship with him.
When we see what Jesus did for us — how he came to Earth, suffered and died for our wrongs, we get a glimpse of the kind of love God has for us. He has done all he could to bring us back into relationship with himself, and this amazing love helps us to turn from going our own way, and run back to him.
Thankfully, Jesus’ death on the cross isn’t the end of the story. On the third day after Jesus was laid in a tomb, he came back to life. And his resurrection is the undoing of death and broken relationship with God. His resurrection shows that he has power over all brokenness, sin, sadness, sickness, and death. When we turn to him and believe in what he has done for us, our relationship with him is restored. Despair turns to hope when we experience the love of God that Jesus came to Earth to show us. And this love is for everyone who simply believes in him.
Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection is what we remember and celebrate at Easter.