Our human society is governed by religions, philosophies and social laws. These are the results of suffering that exist today in the human society. People run after philosophy or religious activities to prosper their life. They run after knowledge and wisdom. They are so thirsty for a prosperous life for which, they come up with different human ideology and doctrines to settle human sufferings. However, these knowledge, wisdom, ideology or whatever we say are from the world and talks about the world. They can remain effective until a person survives but they are never everlasting on basis of actual problem of humanity.
However, we Christians have faith in God and we submit our whole life on his will. We do trust God, his timing, his grace, blessings, and presence in our life. We do never cling to any religious or philosophical doctrines to have a prosperous life because Christ is sufficient for humankind. We do live seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness. We do live following Jesus in our whole life (Hebrew 12:2). Whenever we do cope with trouble or grey area in life, we do trust God. Whenever we face temptation, we seek help from Jesus (Hebrew 4:15). Jesus is only our hope (1 Peter 1:21; 5:7, Romans 8:37, John 16:33, 2 Cor. 2:14).
We must notice that it is the same Person, Who was in the beginning, who was God, and who made all things, who is here said to have become flesh. The Jesus of the gospel story is the God of eternity, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. The reason for the incarnation was the salvation of man. The Good Shepherd came to seek and to save His sheep which were lost. He came in the human form that he might get nearer to the sinner.
A Moravian missionary went to preach the gospel to the slaves in the West Indies. Failing as a free man to reach them, he became a slave himself and went with them to their toils in the field and into all their hardships and sufferings, thus getting close to them. Then they listened to him. This illustrates Christ’s condescension to save the world. We couldn’t understand God in His invisible glory, and Immanuel came, and in human form lived out the Divine life, showing us God’s thoughts, character, and feelings, especially God’s grace and his love for sinners. This was one object for incarnation- it revealed in a way which men could understand the invisible things of God.
Then Christ became man also that He might learn life by actual experience, and thus be fitted to be our Savior and to sympathize with us in all our experiences of temptation, struggle, and sorrow. We are sure now, when we come to Christ in any need, that He understands our condition and knows how to help us. We have a High Priest (Jesus Christ) in heaven who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities because He was tried in all points of temptation as we are. Christ became man also that He might taste death for every man, thus abolishing the death for His people. He remembers what He suffered being tempted; and when He sees His people in their struggle, He remembers when He endured the same and is ready to sympathize with and help them.[1]
Thus, for a Christian, he/she learns the meaning of life by observing Jesus. I think we do not even need to cling to any philosophies and religious doctrines since we do learn from Jesus about life and what it means to be human. Whenever we are hopeless, depressed and suffering in pain, we must look upon him. As mentioned earlier, Jesus himself has gone through every temptation and hence he can help us today (Hebrew 4:15). We can know how life goes when we submit ourselves under God’s will. Jesus was left so alone in his pain and sufferings. He had to face separation from God as well. Yet, he was obedient to Father till his death on the cross. He was living under Father’s will in his whole life. Jesus was the only person who did an action on what he said. It’s easy to give example, but too difficult to be an example. Jesus himself lived among us as an example. He was the only one who lived a perfect life in relationship with God. We don’t just view him as true God, but as a pure human as well.
We do learn how to act in difficult situations of life from Jesus. We are indeed expected by God to be like Jesus. We need to follow him in our life. The more we look upon Jesus, the more we understand God, the purpose of being human, purpose of life and way of living. Today, the secular world takes it a kind of religion to follow Jesus. In contrast, it is indeed our necessity to follow him in our lives for our transformation and restoration in a relationship with God. We cannot even think of living without Jesus. Jesus is the living example for whole humanity.
His words never pass away (Matthew 24:35), he fulfills what he promises us, he is always with us even in time of temptations and trouble of life. He provides true hope when it seems helpless. He has a purpose behind every problem we face. In him, we meet one true loving God. We must live a life following him. We do live a life with Jesus, for Jesus, and in Jesus.
By
Kevin Shrestha, BE Civil Student
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