8.2 How Much Am I Worth?

The entry of Jesus into human history is when things get really interesting, this is God in skin! The Gospel of John describes Jesus coming into the world as this: 'God became flesh and dwelt among us’ Jesus moved into our neighbourhoods! God didn't shout his message from the Heavens. Instead, he becomes one of us. If God was egotistical or insecure, he would have burst onto the scene in a whirlwind of lights, adoring fans and an epic soundtrack. And yet, the opposite is true. And this sets the tone for the rest of his life, for what he says and what he does. He wasn’t born into a palace, he was born in a stable right here in Bethlehem. And He wasn’t born into a settled family. Instead, his family would have been on the run from King Herod’s persecution. Jesus would've spent a lot of his childhood in Egypt For about 3 years and 6 months. In a crypt like this beside a well. We too often forget that Jesus was once an asylum-seeker living in a foreign land whose family feared persecution on returning home. Through the 4 Gospels, we know a lot about his birth and then about his ministry after he turns 30. I would be fascinated to know about the in-between years. I mean what would it have been like for Jesus to grow up here in Nazareth on streets like this? What was he like as a teenager? Was he ever bullied for being a goodie-two-shoes? Was he ever afraid of the dark? Did he struggle with attraction? Did anyone have a crush on him? It can be a lot of fun speculating about what we don't know but for me, from what we can know, the crux of it is this... God becomes human in order to live life in a way that we never could and to die a type of death that we’ll never have to face. And here’s the thing, if Jesus was just on a rescue mission He could have come down to earth as an adult on any given weekend and given his life for us. But instead, we have 33 years of God on earth. That's 33 years of God building relationships with people, showing acceptance, even to the outcast, showing love, even to his enemies and bringing healing, even to those who weren't even bothered to say thanks. Jesus shows us what God is truly like. When we think about the serpent, that talking snake, that messed with the minds of Adam and Eve, it speaks of how we can be deceived to doubt the goodness of God, or doubt whether God can be trusted at all. I see the story of the Gospels as 33 years of Jesus staking a claim for just how trustworthy he is, from his humble entry to his cruel death. He experienced everything that we do, the pain that we feel, the hardship we go through and the trials. He overcame it all and He did not sin. He experienced our temptations and our struggles, he literally walked in our shoes. But for me he’s more than a good friend, he's more than a good teacher. He is my Saviour and He's a willing one at that. Everything leading up to the days just before he was crucified are so raw and so real. He voluntarily goes to Jerusalem knowing that he is walking to his death. On the night before Jesus was crucified, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray about his fear of what was to come. Underneath trees like these and with a view of the city in the background he would have fallen to his knees and cried out to his Father in Heaven. He cried out to his Father until he was literally sweating blood because of the anxiety he was experiencing. What Jesus is crying out for is, ‘If there is any other way of offering the forgiveness of sins, any other way of reminding humanity who they are, any other way of bringing healing to broken people, then let’s do that instead’. We will never truly know the full extent of what Jesus went through for us. While other religious ideas seem to focus on how we can get to God or keep God happy the story of the Bible, the story of Jesus, is about the lengths that God will go to get to us.