Jesus - Why so special?

When we look at the life of Jesus of Nazareth we see in action, in real life, a man who is unique in all of history. This is especially so when we look at how Jesus shows us who God is and what God is like.

The Bible tells us that God is not simply an 'Almighty Supreme Being' but that he is creative, relational, and dynamically active. Jesus shows us this. Throughout his life — in how he spoke, in what he did — Jesus actively and creatively related to people as he healed them, taught them, and even when he got angry with them.

When people met Jesus they left changed and renewed. They felt like they had experienced something divine, a direct and effective touch from a loving and creative God. A first-century historian, a doctor called Luke, records some of their responses:

  • 'My eyes have seen God's salvation!' [1]
  • They were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority. [2]
  • Amazement seized all of them and they glorified God ... [3]
  • She stood behind him [Jesus was reclining at a table], weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears. [4]
  • Jesus was so much like God that it is impossible to separate them. Jesus and God are inseparable. In fact Jesus said, 'Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.' [5]
  • Christians have always believed this. In a letter to a small church in the town of Colossae in what is now Turkey, an early Christian thinker named Paul, wrote: 'He is the image of the invisible God ... for in him all things ... were created ... in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.' [6]

This is why Christians believe that God is a beautiful, awesome, dynamic 'Trinity' - i.e. one God who exists as three persons, (who are often referred to as the 'Father', the 'Son', and the 'Holy Spirit'). We believe that the founder of the universe exists as an eternal dynamic of relationship and creativity - because in the real, red-blooded human being, Jesus, we see God (God the 'Son') actively working and achieving God's (God the 'Father's') creative and life-giving intentions as he is made able by God (God the 'Holy Spirit').
No wonder those who met Jesus felt that they had been caught up into the very life and existence of God himself.

And it's no wonder that what Jesus did is of the greatest significance!

[1] From Luke's biography of Jesus - the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 30, NRSV. The man speaking these words was called Simeon and he said them when Jesus was only still a baby!
[2] Gospel of Luke chapter 4, verse 32, NRSV.
[3] Gospel of Luke chapter 5, verse 76, NRSV. This is how people responded after Jesus had healed a paralysed man.
[4] Gospel of Luke chapter 7, verse 38, NRSV. The woman here had been rejected by society as a "sinful woman" but Jesus had spoken to her, accepted her, and made her well.
[5] Gospel of John chapter 14, verse 11, NRSV.
[6] Paul's letter to the Colossians chapter 1, verses 16 and 19, NRSV.