With over 700 names and titles given to Him, all you need to do is Google His most popular name…Jesus… and you get 159 million hits!
Jesus of Nazareth is the most well known, most documented figure in all of history. Jesus has been the most studied person in human history. No historian would ever argue that Jesus did not exist…there is simply too much evidence! Universities and institutions have been founded for His cause. Countless people have given their lives in devotion to this man that claimed to be God. You can travel the world and not come across anyone who has not heard of Him.
He has been at the forefront of endless debates, skepticism, and controversy.
Whether you are at the Whitehouse Campus or here…You are all here because of your interest in Jesus.
His intentions to save mankind were coupled with a claim to be God. Anything less is making Jesus out to be something He wasn’t.
Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. We don’t know much about His adolescent life, except that He seemed to increase in wisdom and stature and He was sinless (Luke 2:52)
His ministry began at His baptism with John the Baptist (Mark 1:1-15) where He was quickly lead to the desert to be tempted by Satan himself. He selected 12 disciples to do life and ministry with. He claimed to be God and to be here to bring salvation to the world. He healed the sick and demon possessed. He preached of an everlasting life with His Father in a place called Heaven.
He offered this pardon from sin to everyone, much to the dismay of many of His fellow Jewish audience. He offered life after death in Heaven to people who weren’t Jewish…the gentiles. You and me.
He challenged the church, the how and what of peoples worship. He gathered enough of a following to alert the mighty Roman Empire. He claimed to be the King of the mightiest army in the universe, He claimed that the only way to be saved from hell was to believe in His own name. He had been the subject of many prophecies in the past; all were waiting for His arrival. All were focused on His promise to save, but not all were convinced the salvation would come after death…they were hoping for something different. They were hoping for their immediate rescue from the hand of the Romans. They were not satisfied.
As you know Jesus was betrayed by one of His closest friends, Judas…with a kiss. He was put on trial and found innocent by Pontius Pilot. But the Jews were not satisfied. They had shallow eyes. They had deaf ears. They had hardened hearts. They responded to the claims of Christ through sin filled hearts and blood stained hands. They sentenced Him to death by crucifixion. They hung Him between two guilty thieves, ridiculed Him and mocked Him. He died brutally, naked, in front of His own mother. His is the most talked about death in all of human history. For one reason.
His had meaning.
Death couldn’t hold Him and the grave wasn’t deep enough. The stone wasn’t big enough I guess. The Bible claims a resurrected King, a living God. A God with meaning, compassion and a plan for our rescue. But far too often…we’re not satisfied. We want more. We want rescue from our immediate situation.
Jesus was my age when He died!!!!! What He accomplished between the age of 30 and 33 changed to course of human history. Why did God the Father have to do something this radical?
Send His one and only Son…here…to a place that had rejected Him? To a people that were not satisfied, to a people who were more focused on the ‘doing’ of religion than they were on the One they were doing it for?
What sets Christianity apart is that God became human and died for mankind, so that we could have a second chance. Sin had us in its grip, hell had my name. We have a God that became human. This is impossible to fully comprehend. When we think of the sacrifice of Christ we often think of the cross…think about the sacrifice that it took to become human and leave His Fathers side in Heaven!!!!
The moment Eve’s lips touched that apple sin became a terminal disease to which there was no cure for. A perfect and holy God injected Himself with our disease to give us the cure, He became human to give us the cure.
Jesus was FULLY human!
God had a human body. He got tired like we do (John 4:6).
He got thirsty (John 19:28), He got hungry (Matt 4:2)
He died in a human body, rose from the dead in a human body, ascended to Heaven in a human body. He cried like we do, bled like we do.
Jesus was so human in fact…that many around Him just thought He was a very good man. (Matt 13:53-58) Even some of His brothers couldn’t believe! He was fully human, but fully God.
He wasn’t glowing, He didn’t have a halo above His head or a cool neoprene superhero costume with a “J” on the front. While He indeed preformed miracles, He didn’t abuse His divinity by showing off. He walked places instead of flying, He used the doorknob like everyone else, He spoke with words instead of telepathy. Think about it…of all the things Jesus could have done with His power, He restrained Himself.
That’s why I’m not God. I’d be the laziest god you have ever seen. Know what I’m saying? Minimal effort. Why get off the couch to make dinner? (snap fingers) instant Salisbury steak hungry man…why miss Sportscenter?
I mean c’mon, you’d do it too! You know… turn invisible and mess around with the disciples a little bit, move stuff around, hide their keys to the donkey…stuff like that.
Nope, Jesus did this human thing just like us.
He had a human mind so to speak, in the aspect that He learned and gained knowledge. He had human emotions. He knows what you are going through right now, He knows how you are feeling, what mistakes you have made, how to overcome them.
Yet He was without sin. He was fully God, make no mistake.
Was His humanity necessary?
ILL - Have you ever thought about “time”? You know – your watch, a clock.
Who’s got the official call on this one? How do we know what time it really is? Who says? Timex? Your cell phone? Your cable box? Your car dashboard? Somebody somewhere has the official time.
The US NAVY has a master clock, there is such a thing as the atomic clock, accurate to one second per million years…if you really want to be accurate, go to TIME.GOV and get your watch set with the official U.S. time.
If we didn’t have a standard on time…we’d slowly but surely get off by increments. What’s the first thing you do when you get a new watch…turn to the nearest clock and set yours. When your car battery dies and you have to reset your clock…you look at your watch. None, by the way are perfectly accurate…but since we have a standard, we can get in the ballpark. Anywhere in the world. Without that standard to measure up to, we would grow hopelessly out of sync by way of seconds, then hours and days over time...
Jesus chose to be human for this reason. We needed a measurement we could understand, one that we could relate to. Without Jesus, we would certainly grow apart from that perfect standard by increments. We would set our moral clocks by whoever was closest to us, “he’s a good guy…she’s a nice person”…this sort of thing. The trouble is, is that we all fall short of Gods glory (Rom 3:23). That’s why Jesus chose humanity.
He gave us His word, the Bible so we can navigate through this life. That’s why He chose to give His life for ours.
Was it necessary for Him to die??? He’s God…couldn’t he have found a different way?
Understand this…it’s not necessary for God to save anyone at all!!!! We deserve death in payment for our sin. Period. We deserve nothing. The tiniest bit God decides to give us, is a blessing that we do not deserve.
But the fact is, He gave us His all. 100%
For much of my life, when asked to think about Jesus, I’d picture human Jesus.
Brown robe, burgundy “Miss America” style sash, sandals, long hair, some sort of trendy beard/goatie thing going on. ..
Until I studied a portion of scripture that forever changed my perception of The King of the Jews.
Revelation chapter 5. My Fave☺ (REV DVDS AVAILABLE)
The book of Revelation has much to do with worship.
Worship is at the core of our being. By nature we look for something to give our life away to. We typically determine what that thing will be based on our assessment of value.
Sports teams, possessions, money, musicians…
Whatever you deem most valuable, you will give your self away to in a form of worship. One of the keys to life is making the right choice on your object of worship.
Let’s look at what all of creation worships. All created angelic beings in Heaven worship the same thing. All of hell, its demons and its leader fear it. The earth itself groans in anticipation to rejoin it. That’s probably the thing we want to worship…
This is the account of John, who got the chance to enter the throne room of heaven in a vision and relay it back to us in writing.
There was a document; so to speak, in heaven that was so precious…no one was found worthy to open it. It held the destiny of mankind’s future.
We find John weeping here, because no one is worthy to open it. Just as John has fallen to his knees in tears …grief-stricken and saddened, someone appears in the great throne room of Heaven and all of creation is responsive to His presence.
Read Rev 5:6-14
Human Jesus fully God!! In all His power and majesty being worshiped by billions, all creatures of Heaven and earth falling to their knees in awe and respect…John must have been blown off His feet!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After all, it had only been a few short years since he had last seen this old friend of his, being beaten, led down alleyways with a splintered cross draped across his back, searing into His gaping open wounds from being beaten, a crown of thorns smashed onto His head cutting deep into His skin, being mocked and scorned, being spit upon and cursed. Nails pinned Him to that rugged cross suffocating Him slowly while guards gambled for His robe to mock Him as a king. John knew this scene well.
It was fresh in his memory. To now see this dear, frail friend in His rightful place, the most powerful being in the entire universe…the only one who is worthy to be worshiped must have toppled John to his knees…who could stand?????
John truly understood grace at this moment. He saw Jesus of Nazareth in a different light and believe me………….
HE WAS SATISFIED…he was satisfied.
All we need to do to understand the awesome power of Jesus Christ, is understand what He chose to do for us in coming here…to do it right, like only a loving God could do.
That’s Christmas.
Born to a virgin as had been prophesied. Born to a virgin to show that salvation can never come through human effort.
I will never again think about the baby Jesus the same way. Christmas is a rescue mission masterminded and carried out by God Himself in the flesh.
His name shall be called Immanuel. God with us. Isaiah called it. God WITH us.
What did He see in us? Why were we worth it? We don’t deserve this freedom.
Thank you Jesus, these chains are gone!!!!!!
Oh come oh come Immanuel, fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. The Word that Became Flesh. The beginning and the end…Redeemer, Savior, Lord of Life!
A stable in tiny Bethlehem. The perfect place for a King, who chose to get dirty enough to save us. Will you accept His offering? Will you accept Him into your heart? Are you satisfied?
