Jesus is God who took on human nature. He is a God who became man. Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity.
All of the above are true of Jesus but a more significant question needs to be answered. What does Jesus have something to do with me? Indeed Jesus is God, but what difference it makes to each one of us? Will our life now be something else had Jesus did not come to dwell among us?
To answer these questions one must first examine the purpose of the incarnation, that is, God becoming a man like us. Perhaps John 10:10 is our best clue in which Jesus said, I came that you may have life and have it to the full.
How did Jesus manage to do such? First he taught us, second he cured our illness, and third, he drove out evil spirits. Knowledge of the principles of Christian living, being physically well and free from evil spirits will give a life being lived to the full.
But why did Jesus want us to live a life to the full? The answer to this question will bring us to understanding of Jesus mission. As Christians believe that Jesus is the fullness of God’s revelations. With Jesus, God spoke to us by his son whilst before him; God spoke to us by the prophets. By Jesus teaching, his healing ministry and exorcism, Jesus has revealed to us the Father, or how much God the Father loved us. Therefore the mission of Jesus is to show how much God loves us.
We can also notice that Jesus in doing his mission, or in other words in showing us God’s love, particularly by teaching, healing, and driving out demons, Jesus has been loyal to his ministry. He encountered oppositions and rejections which eventually resulted to his scandalous, undignified, brutal and embarrassing death and yet despite his knowledge that such things could happen to him, he never turned back. Despite all the risk, his ministry was business as usual. Hence he ended up in the cross. Actually that was not the end of the story. The culmination of Jesus life story is that he has risen from the dead.
So what is now the meaning of Jesus life to us? Well, by knowing Jesus, we came to know that God loved us and it is God’s desire that each one of us could have life and have it to the fullest. But Jesus, ordinary man as he is, had a life that was only temporal. The man Jesus is no longer with us in the same manner that he had been with the early Christians during his earthly life. Of course He is still present through the Holy Spirit, but not in blood in flesh anymore. It is therefore our responsibility, as Christians, or as ordinary individuals who came to know him, to share this knowledge to others who don’t know yet.
Like Jesus, we must show God’s love to others in our own unique capacity as ordinary individuals. By being a good teacher we share in his teaching ministry, by being an efficient and caring doctor or nurse we share in his healing ministry, by being compassionate counsellors we share in his exorcism ministry.
And in the course of us sharing in Jesus mission, there is always the possibility that others might reject and oppose us, if such things actually happen, we must carry on, and we must be loyal to our mission even if this could lead us to death, for God will never abandon us. Like Jesus we will overcome death.
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