Let me tell you a story - the story of Jesus Christ

We all have a story. We can all sit and tell the story of our life and the parts we choose, or choose not, to tell, We have childhoods, families, relationships (some that went sour), and we all have successes (whether they are small or large). 

The story of Jesus is not much different than any of ours - with the exception He was God incarnate. Jesus was born in a small town called Bethlehem. For those of us born in a small town, we can all relate to the small town feel. We can also relate to the small town gossip and there was certainly no shortage of gossip when it came to the birth of Jesus. 

After all, he was born in a stable that fed animals. He was placed in a feeding trough where the animals ate their daily food. Not exactly the start of a life of royalty or holiness. 

Jesus has a mother named Mary. She was young and had found herself in a situation she never expected to be in and we can all relate to that feeling. We may not all end up with visits from angels, an out of wedlock pregnancy from God. We can, on the other hand, relate to the feeling of “now what?”

Mary was obedient to the calling of God to be the mother of the Messiah. Joseph, on the other hand, was not so eager and quick to say that it was all okay. In fact, he was done with it. He believed that Mary had cheated on him and had relations with another man and he was going to leave her. God then visited him and told him that it was, indeed, the Messiah Mary was carrying and that he should stick with her. 

He did. 

Jesus was raised as an intelligent (way far superior than what was expected at his age) as a Jew and was raised by parents that dedicated themselves and surrounded to the callings of God. The boy, God Incarnate, grew up for 32 years in almost total silence. Other than a brief encounter where he got lost from his parents because he was hanging out at the temple asking questions, we do not see much of Jesus as a young boy. 

Why? 

It was not His time. He learned to walk. He learned to talk. He ate the meals Mary cooked, he worked hard, felt the heat on his hands as he sweated. He laughed. He cried. He had friends. He attended religious feasts and celebrated the Passover. 

Satan became angrier with each passing breath Jesus took.

He had lived three decades on earth before He started sharing the truth of God’s Word and calling people to repentance. He urged humans to love each other, forgive each other, and to surrender to the Lord. He begged them to turn from their sins and accept the grace and mercy of God. 

He taught them how to follow Him. He taught them how to pray. He demonstrated the power of God through miracles and raising the dead.

He loved. Mankind hated. He gave. Mankind plotted to take away. 

He had compassion. Satan had anger.

He showed people how to receive eternal life in heaven. Satan battled to try and turn people to hell. 

One day, Satan seemed to have won. He was able to convince one of Jesus’ friends to betray Him. A friend that Jesus has allowed to see miracles of healing, multiplying the loaves and fishes, and being able to heal himself. It was this friend for which Jesus had poured His time, love, energy, and hours that had chose to betray Him for money. 

Jesus was arrested on bogus charges of blasphemy. I am not sure how you get arrested for blasphemy when you are, indeed, God. The crazy thing is that Jesus never came out directly and said He was God. He found other ways to say it, but in today’s society there would be no proof that Jesus was guilty.

But, Jesus was tried in an illegal and single sided trial that was determined to see Jesus put to death. They seemed to have won. They did, in fact, get Jesus to be sentenced to death and He was scourged, beaten, mocked, and crucified. 

It was only through the consent of God that Jesus was crucified, An innocent lamb led to the slaughter, Jesus took our place. He took your place. He took my place because the consequences of sin is death. The only path to eternal life was payment for our sins, but we could never pay the final balance due to God for our trespasses. Jesus was the only way to allow us salvation, He was the gate to eternal life. 

The devil rejoiced. The enemies of God rejoiced. The disciples were frightened and hiding for the lives. After all, Jesus was dead and they were to be next since they had promulgated the teachings of Jesus. 

But, faithful women that followed Christ went to his tomb and found it empty. The angel announced that Jesus had risen from the dead and was, indeed, alive. 

Jesus appeared to his disciples and thousands of others. Do not get this wrong. He did not only appear to the disciples that loved Him and would have wanted to convince themselves they saw HIm. He appeared to thousands of individuals that were filled with skeptics, haters, and those that also loved Him. 

He gave them their final command to go to the world and tell others of God. He told them to go make disciples of all nations.

The apostles obeyed.  They taught, the preached, the wrote, and they were martyred. All for Jesus. All for the salvation they had found.

Jesus never left us. He did physically. He never let us entirely because God sent the Holy Spirit to be with us for the rest of our life on earth. 

Life our own story, there are many more cracks to fill and details to ink into the life of Jesus. Our own story has chapters and sections. These are the chapters of Jesus taken from Sacred Scripture. There are many more to be written. There are many more chapters and sections to be written for your own story as well. 

The most important thing to know is this:

Jesus is coming back.