Jesus Christ

We do not always act as we know we should, or can behave in a way that puts our own needs above those of others. For most of us, this is at a small scale but nonetheless leads to mistakes, regrets, and pain for ourselves and other people. We wish we could undo these things. At a bigger scale, across society, these selfish or thoughtless impulses can lead to structural inequalities - poverty, discrimination, and injustice. At times the whole world can seem like it is built on unfair principles, and at the root of this is people’s pettiness or disregard for others. It seems an unbreakable cycle.

Christians believe that God is Love and wants us to live in that love: living with one another just as he eternally exists as a Trinity. In order to ‘reset’ human society and human nature, we believe that God became a human being: Jesus of Nazareth. This belief is known as the Incarnation and happened two thousand years ago in the Roman province of Judaea (present-day Israel). We do not think that God merely took on a human appearance but that he actually became a human being, in exactly the same way as us. He was born into a Jewish family, grew up in a small village, worked as a craftsman, and made friends. When he was about thirty years old, he left his employment and family and began travelling the countryside preaching, performing miracles, and carrying out exorcisms. At the heart of his ministry and teachings was that all human beings are loved by God and that everyone and everything can be forgiven. If we forgive one another, we can reset every relationship and transform the world from its present broken state into the ‘Kingdom of God’. In the Kingdom, wealth and power will no longer mean anything: all will be equally valued and equally loved.

Jesus’ teaching brought him many followers and admirers. But his willingness to talk about what God wanted on his own authority offended the religious leaders of his time, whilst his growing popularity was a threat to the Roman occupying forces. Eventually, they cooperated to have him arrested, tried, and executed. He was crucified for treason and blasphemy. Three days later, some of his closest followers began to claim that they had seen him, restored to life. For forty days, more and more people had visions and experiences of their risen friend and teacher. They came to believe that through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus had ushered in a new beginning to mankind and the whole world. These followers, the first Christians, came to see that Jesus was more than simply a prophet and a teacher. They re-read their scriptures (what we now call the ‘Old Testament’) and came to believe that God had been fulfilling his promises to save his people through Jesus - that Jesus had been and was God.