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Why we need Jesus ...
Friday, Dez 20, 2019. We have been discussing why we need Jesus. We started with the question why we need God to talk to us. And we talked about God being the creator. He knows creation, and he knows humans. We need his wisdom.
We also talked about him and his spirit as the one who can fill our heart and our mind. We are made to be with him, with the eternal father. Only when we find the eternal loving father, we are complete. Without him we will always feel a void in the center of our existence.
Justice …
There are further reasons why we need Jesus. There are very deep reasons. One core point is that we all need justice. We want justice. We long for justice. So many of us are angry about injustice. We are angry if humans are treated badly - that can be us or other people. Most of us get really angry when we see injustice taking place.
But injustice is a part of our own life as well. We are not always just. Perhaps we are sometimes just. If we start to investigate our own actions, our thoughts, our words, our behaviour, we discover more and more parts of it which are not what they should be. Of course, we can be patient with ourselves. We can be careful and forgiving to ourselves. We have the freedom to weight our own failures. But still, our own behaviour is a serious problem - if we start to look into it at all.
What can be a solution to the injustice of others? Punishment? Revenge? We are happy about clear laws, about the police to take care of injustice. Modern democracies have developed a complex code of justice, courts and punishment for human behaviour. Yet, we all know that there is so much crime which is not brought to justice. And there are so many things where people hurt each other deeply which are beyond our legal system.
Reconciliation …
Jesus is called the lamb of God. This title is given to him for his death at the cross of Calvary. The Christian message tells us that he died for the sin of the world. He died as an innocent person, and through this death God gives punishment to each and everyone who believes in him.
The cross of Jesus is something strange. How can someone else take my punishment onto him? Is that possible? You can pay money for someone, who owes money to someone else. But usually you cannot go to prison for someone, or you cannot take a death sentence for someone else. But here, it is said to be reality. Jesus is taking the death sentence for all humans. In him and through faith in Jesus humans can be completely reconciled with God. Justice is given to them, complete justice. The bible uses the image of white robes.
We need Jesus, since eternal life is only possible with full justice. We all long for forgiveness. We all long for being completely accepted, completely loved, completely true. This is possible only when our life gets transformed. It is possible only by a new birth, given to us through water and spirit. Baptism points to this transformation. Christmas is so important since God starts the practical part of his deep salvation story with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. (Roland Potthast)
This is part of the trilogy project “Faith of a Scientist”.