Why Jesus?

Chris­tian­i­ty start­ed with the min­istry of Jesus Christ whose life and mes­sage changed the world. Jesus, who was him­self a Jew (A native of the ancient Israel.), not only declared that he was the sav­ior promised hun­dreds of years before him in the Old Tes­ta­ment ((The Jews’ Holy Scrip­ture or the first part of the Bible.)), but far beyond that: In con­trast to oth­er reli­gious lead­ers, he claimed to be the only way to God, and he calls every­one to fol­low him.

• Who was Jesus?
• What was his mes­sage and how did he live?
• Why was he killed?
• Why do we think that he can­not be com­pared to oth­er famous per­son­al­i­ties in the his­to­ry of humankind?
• And why do we fol­low only his exam­ple and his teaching?

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

We can­not expe­ri­ence him today as those did who met him per­son­al­ly some 2000 years ago, but we have the tes­ti­mo­ny of his first dis­ci­ples who were togeth­er with him day and night. The New Tes­ta­ment (The sec­ond part of the Bible.) con­tains their reports about what Jesus said and did and describes the life of the first Christians.

Jesus’s message is unique

Morality

Jesus’s teach­ing on moral­i­ty exceeds the teach­ing of any oth­er teacher of humanity:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not com­mit adul­tery.’ But I say to you that every­one who looks at a woman with lust­ful intent has already com­mit­ted adul­tery with her in his heart. If your right eye caus­es you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is bet­ter that you lose one of your mem­bers than that your whole body be thrown into hell. (Matthew 5:27–29)

Even oth­er reli­gions teach that desires should be over­come. But what some of them mean is that man should lit­er­al­ly give up every desire, whether good or bad. This actu­al­ly leads to a lack of inter­est in oth­ers and self­ish­ness because true love requires a strong wish to do good to oth­ers. Their aim is to reach a state where man is not him­self any­more, but has been dis­solved in some high­er power—just like a drop of water gets dis­solved in the ocean.

Jesus, how­ev­er, shows that God is not some high­er pow­er, but our lov­ing heav­en­ly father from whom we are sep­a­rat­ed because of our sins. He wants us to come back to God who is the only one who can fill our lives with real peace, hope, and ever­last­ing joy. This is why he shows that sin starts in our thoughts and that it is at this point where regret must start. He uncov­ers the things that are hid­den inside a per­son and judges them with incom­pa­ra­ble strict­ness. For exam­ple, he con­sid­ers hav­ing lust­ful thoughts to be as bad as mar­i­tal unfaith­ful­ness. Jesus calls us to change with words that could not be clear­er, even if they should not be tak­en word for word in the above statement.

To a cer­tain extent, we can find doc­trines of moral­i­ty in every reli­gion, but Jesus’s assess­ment of actions, words, and thoughts is unique because it expos­es the hearts of peo­ple. He expects a rad­i­cal change in one’s atti­tude and thoughts—the very base for a holy life. He stress­es the impor­tance of get­ting rid of all evil and so become free to love and to do what is good.

Love your enemies

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neigh­bor and hate your ene­my.” But I tell you: Love your ene­mies and pray for those who per­se­cute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heav­en. He caus­es his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the right­eous and the unright­eous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax col­lec­tors doing that? And if you greet only your broth­ers, what are you doing more than oth­ers? Do not even pagans ((Fol­low­ers of poly­the­is­tic reli­gions.)) do that? Be per­fect, there­fore, as your heav­en­ly Father is per­fect. (Matthew 5:43–48)

Already in the Old Tes­ta­ment, we can find pas­sages where God demand­ed from the Israelites to love for­eign­ers and to be kind toward their ene­mies. Jesus’s com­mand­ment to love our ene­mies, how­ev­er, goes beyond every­thing that was known up until then. Jesus does not teach that we should try to see an evil per­son as good and think pos­i­tive­ly of him, ignor­ing the evil he did. Lov­ing our ene­mies accord­ing to Jesus’s teach­ing means that we are ful­ly aware of the grav­i­ty of their guilt and its con­se­quences in front of God. Just this aware­ness can move us to look away from our­selves and from what we had to suf­fer and to draw strength from God in order to over­come all bad feel­ings of revenge, hatred, and self-pity caused by oth­ers’ wrong­do­ing and open our hearts and eyes to see if there is any chance to help them regret their sin and change.

Forgiveness of sins

When one of the Phar­isees ((One of the par­ties of Jew­ish reli­gious lead­ers.)) invit­ed Jesus to have din­ner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sin­ful life learned that Jesus was eat­ing at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of per­fume. As she stood behind him at his feet weep­ing, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured per­fume on them. When the Phar­isee who had invit­ed him saw this, he said to him­self, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touch­ing him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sin­ner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have some­thing to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two peo­ple owed mon­ey to a cer­tain money­len­der. One owed him five hun­dred denarii ((A denar­ius was the usu­al dai­ly wage of a day labor­er.)), and the oth­er fifty. Nei­ther of them had the mon­ey to pay him back, so he for­gave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I sup­pose the one who had the big­ger debt for­giv­en.” “You have judged cor­rect­ly,” Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kiss­ing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured per­fume on my feet. There­fore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But who­ev­er has been for­giv­en lit­tle loves lit­tle.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are for­giv­en.” The oth­er guests began to say among them­selves, “Who is this who even for­gives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:36–50)

Jesus’s mes­sage con­fronts every­one like this sin­ful woman with the sad real­i­ty of how far we are from God’s stan­dard and how much each one of us has destroyed in his life through his sins. Every sin­gle sin is a “blow in God’s face” because instead of respond­ing to his great love toward us with thank­ful obe­di­ence, we rebel against him and dis­hon­or our cre­ator. We can­not undo this guilt. The only thing we can do is to humbly turn to God with a bro­ken heart, just as this woman did, and ask for his grace and for­give­ness. Jesus ful­ly rep­re­sents the love of God, and he has the author­i­ty to for­give our sins if we admit them clear­ly and regret them, and he also wants to give us all the strength and help we need to change our thoughts, inten­tions, and actions. He is the only one who can give real free­dom from sin. And as his words and deeds gave hope and courage to those who at that time were con­sid­ered hope­less cas­es with no chance of help or change, he gives hope and brings about real change even today:

Jesus said,

“If you hold to my teach­ing, you are real­ly my dis­ci­ples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” … Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, every­one who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no per­ma­nent place in the fam­i­ly, but a son belongs to it for­ev­er. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31–36)

Only in him, by fol­low­ing in his foot­steps, we can find real peace and rest:

Come to me, all you who are weary and bur­dened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke ((A bar or frame that is attached to the heads or necks of two work ani­mals (such as oxen) so that they can pull a plow or heavy load.)) upon you and learn from me, for I am gen­tle and hum­ble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my bur­den is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)

Jesus’s life is unique

What­ev­er a teacher teach­es is only reli­able if he him­self lives accord­ing to his mes­sage. Those who knew Jesus per­son­al­ly tes­ti­fied to his blame­less life. His ene­mies, the reli­gious lead­ers who feared to lose their influ­ence and hon­or among the Jews, were not able to accuse him of any sin. Over and over again, they tried to con­vict him of sin, but they could not. Instead, they them­selves were chal­lenged by Jesus’s answers and behav­ior. He moved the whole of Israel—people came from every­where and every­one spoke about him. Even polit­i­cal lead­ers such as the Jew­ish ruler Herod Antipas and the Roman gov­er­nor Pon­tius Pilate had to deal with him. There­fore, we can be cer­tain that the Jews who reject­ed Jesus would have been more than glad to blame him pub­licly if he had done or said any­thing wrong. But this did not happen.

Jesus did not just call peo­ple to obey God—he led his dis­ci­ples by his own per­fect exam­ple. He lived a mod­est and self-dis­ci­plined life and applied the same stan­dard to him­self as he did to oth­ers. On the evening before his death, to the sur­prise of his dis­ci­ples, Jesus washed their feet. This was actu­al­ly con­sid­ered the work of a slave, but he did this to show by his own exam­ple what it means to serve each other:

Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Hav­ing loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the dev­il had already prompt­ed Judas ((One of Jesus’s dis­ci­ples.)), the son of Simon Iscar­i­ot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his pow­er, and that he had come from God and was return­ing to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his out­er cloth­ing, and wrapped a tow­el around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his dis­ci­ples’ feet, dry­ing them with the tow­el that was wrapped around him … When he had fin­ished wash­ing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you under­stand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and right­ly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an exam­ple that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:1–15)

His dis­ci­ples were with him every day for around two and a half years and were often put to shame by his love and humil­i­ty. Jesus’s way of life togeth­er with his words con­vict­ed them then and still does the same today.

Jesus’s miracles and healings are unique

Accord­ing to the Gospels (The first four books of the New Tes­ta­ment: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.), Jesus healed the sick, cleansed the lep­ers, made the lame walk, and opened the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind; he set free those who were afflict­ed by evil spir­its and even raised the dead; he mul­ti­plied bread and fish, calmed the wind and the sea, etc.:

Jesus went through­out Galilee ((The region of Israel where Jesus lived.)), teach­ing in their syn­a­gogues, pro­claim­ing the good news of the king­dom, and heal­ing every dis­ease and sick­ness among the peo­ple. News about him spread all over Syr­ia, and peo­ple brought to him all who were ill with var­i­ous dis­eases, those suf­fer­ing severe pain, the demon-pos­sessed, those hav­ing seizures, and the par­a­lyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapo­lis ((Decapo­lis and Judea were regions of ancient Israel.)), Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jor­dan fol­lowed him. (Matthew 4:23–25)

The peo­ple of his time who saw all this with their own eyes were amazed. All this had nev­er hap­pened before; even his ene­mies could not deny it. And although many have since tried to imi­tate him, no one has ever like Jesus healed every­one who came to him and cured every kind of dis­ease and dis­abil­i­ty. His heal­ings were com­plete and not par­tial healings:

He went into their syn­a­gogue, and a man with a shriv­eled hand was there … Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was com­plete­ly restored, just as sound as the oth­er. (Matthew 12:9–13)

He went into their syn­a­gogue, and a man with a shriv­eled hand was there … Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was com­plete­ly restored, just as sound as the oth­er. (Matthew 12:9–13)

The pur­pose of his mir­a­cles, how­ev­er, was not pri­mar­i­ly to restore people’s phys­i­cal health but to con­firm his spir­i­tu­al mes­sage: that he is the sav­ior who came into this dark world to lead us out of our sin­ful and hope­less lives with great com­pas­sion and love so that we can live for­ev­er with God and all his chil­dren in per­fect peace and joy:

Soon after­ward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his dis­ci­ples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead per­son was being car­ried out—the only son of his moth­er, and she was a wid­ow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.” Then he went up and touched the bier they were car­ry­ing him on, and the bear­ers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his moth­er. (Luke 7:11–15)

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were sib­lings, and all three of them were also dis­ci­ples of Jesus. He loved them. One day Lazarus became ill and died:

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days … When Martha heard that Jesus was com­ing, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my broth­er would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you what­ev­er you ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your broth­er will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the res­ur­rec­tion at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the res­ur­rec­tion and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and who­ev­er lives by believ­ing in me will nev­er die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Mes­si­ah ((The Hebrew word for sav­ior.)), the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” … When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my broth­er would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weep­ing, and the Jews who had come along with her also weep­ing, he was deeply moved in spir­it and trou­bled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sis­ter of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glo­ry of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple stand­ing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” There­fore many of the Jews who had come to vis­it Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. (John 11:1–46)

Jesus’s resurrection is unique

Already from the begin­ning of his min­istry, most of the Jew­ish lead­ers had been very jeal­ous and angry when they saw how many peo­ple fol­lowed him and that they could not con­vict him of any sin or dis­prove any of his state­ments. They want­ed to harm him and even kill him, and final­ly they car­ried out this evil plan. Jesus, how­ev­er, was aware of their inten­tions, but con­scious­ly did not resist them because he want­ed to over­come evil by love:

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” Jesus said to his dis­ci­ples, “and the Son of Man ((Jesus used this expres­sion for him­self.)) will be deliv­ered over to the chief priests and the teach­ers of the law ((The Jew­ish reli­gious lead­ers.)). They will con­demn him to death and will hand him over to the Gen­tiles ((Non-Jews.)), who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days lat­er he will rise.” (Mark 10:32–34)

The rea­son my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have author­i­ty to lay it down and author­i­ty to take it up again. This com­mand I received from my Father. (John 10:17–18)

Three days after being nailed to a cross, which was con­sid­ered a shame­ful and very cru­el death penal­ty used only for crim­i­nals, Jesus rose from the dead. The Bible calls on many eye­wit­ness­es who report about Jesus’s death and res­ur­rec­tion. Many of those who had been with him before his death saw him again—talked with him, touched him, and ate with him. For forty days, Jesus appeared to more than 500 of his dis­ci­ples on dif­fer­ent occa­sions and explained to them what the Old Tes­ta­ment was say­ing about him, his death, and his res­ur­rec­tion. After these forty days, Jesus left this earth, but in the same way as his dis­ci­ples con­tin­ued to expe­ri­ence the rela­tion­ship with the res­ur­rect­ed Jesus, we too expe­ri­ence his help in our dai­ly lives. When we turn to him, he changes our lives and gives us clar­i­ty and strength in what we should do. His res­ur­rec­tion made it clear that evil is not vic­to­ri­ous. God showed the world that the right­eous do not sim­ply die and dis­ap­pear. Jesus trust­ed God and knew that he is just. This is true for all who believe in God through him. Death is not the end or a ter­ri­ble awak­en­ing for those who fol­low Jesus—they will live with God eter­nal­ly, even when they die.

What shall we do?

About 2000 years ago, the whole of Judea was on the move, seek­ing to lis­ten to Jesus’s words and see his mir­a­cles. Those who received his words in their heart and under­stood his mes­sage changed their lives com­plete­ly and began to fol­low Jesus as their Lord with­out com­pro­mise, not even shrink­ing back from death.

The same hap­pens also today: Peo­ple who believe in his words expe­ri­ence the effect and pow­er of his mes­sage in their own lives. His words are not beau­ti­ful­ly expressed thoughts but a chal­lenge to our lives. Jesus wants to reach our hearts and calls us to go the very way he went. His truth sets us free from a life formed by sin. This means that we need to see the truth about our­selves; we need to real­ize and con­fess our sin­ful­ness; and accept that we need God’s for­give­ness through Jesus.

Then he can give us the strength to give up our sins: self­ish­ness, immoral­i­ty, addic­tions, lies, van­i­ty (i.e., the wish to impress oth­ers with one’s out­ward appear­ance), jeal­ousy and envy, feel­ings of being worth­less, pride, and the urge to please oth­er peo­ple. Now we can start liv­ing a holy life.

God gives us this new life so that we can serve him and each oth­er self­less­ly. Jesus said,

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great­est com­mand­ment. And the sec­ond is like it: Love your neigh­bor as your­self. (Matthew 22:37–39)

A new com­mand I give you: Love one anoth­er. As I have loved you, so you must love one anoth­er. (John 13:34)

After his res­ur­rec­tion and depar­ture from this earth, his dis­ci­ples put into prac­tice what Jesus had taught them about hum­ble ser­vice and love:

They devot­ed them­selves to the apos­tles’ ((Those 12 dis­ci­ples who were with Jesus every day.)) teach­ing and to fel­low­ship, to the break­ing of bread and to prayer … Every day they con­tin­ued to meet togeth­er in the tem­ple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate togeth­er with glad and sin­cere hearts … (Acts of the Apos­tles 2:42 and 46)

For the first Chris­tians it was nat­ur­al to come togeth­er every day. Their com­mon life bore wit­ness to their love for God and their broth­ers and sis­ters. We, too, have this sin­cere desire to share our lives with our sis­ters and broth­ers in faith, to read the Bible togeth­er, and to take part in each other’s joys, sor­rows, and spir­i­tu­al strug­gles. For us, dai­ly fel­low­ship is an expres­sion of love and a result of the wish to live what we believe, to devote our time to God and to our broth­ers and sis­ters in faith. We use our time for the things that are most important.

Who­ev­er claims to love God yet hates a broth­er or sis­ter is a liar. For who­ev­er does not love their broth­er and sis­ter, whom they have seen, can­not love God, whom they have not seen. And he has giv­en us this com­mand: Any­one who loves God must also love their broth­er and sis­ter. (1 John 4:20–21)

We as Chris­tians are very thank­ful that we have such reli­able infor­ma­tion about Jesus and the first Chris­tians in the Bible. That is why we have an eager inter­est to deal with the Word of God dai­ly. We would also like to encour­age you to read the Bible in order to get to know Jesus.

Do not let your­self be con­fused by the uncount­able num­ber of denom­i­na­tions that come under the name of Chris­tian­i­ty. If you are look­ing for the truth, take a clos­er look at the per­son and words of Jesus your­self by read­ing one of the Gospels in the Bible (for exam­ple Mark or Luke). You can read the Bible on the Inter­net as well. For exam­ple on https://www.biblegateway.com you can find many dif­fer­ent ver­sions and lan­guages. If you want to read the Bible in Eng­lish, we would rec­om­mend you to choose the New Inter­na­tion­al Ver­sion (NIV) for the beginning.

We invite you to get in touch with us too to read the Bible togeth­er with us. Each one of us expe­ri­enced how much it helps to search togeth­er for the right way to under­stand the words of Jesus and also to put them into prac­tice togeth­er. We do not belong to any denom­i­na­tion or any oth­er kind of reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion. Nei­ther did we intend to start any­thing new but sim­ply fol­low the good exam­ple of our broth­ers in the Bible. Faith is a real­i­ty for us which fills all areas of our lives.