Jesus Died

Jesus Died

          We can all agree that Jesus did die. We also know how He died; on the cross. I want to know Why He died. I know that the church teaches that God sent Jesus to earth to die on the cross as a blood sacrifice to atone for our many sins. Do you find this as hard to believe as I do? I ask myself, if, God is the Loving God that we worship�"why would He send Jesus for the express purpose of shedding His blood on the cross? I am mot disputing the Bible: only our understanding of it.

          It is my theory that in the long ago past, when people believed the earth was flat, they were afraid of many things. They turned to, the medicine man, priest, or leader, sometimes a wise man and sometimes not as wise as they thought, for advice and healing and laws to govern their lives. I am aware that the Old Testament of the Bible orders a blood sacrifice for many sins. It is up to you to decide if the order actually came from God, or if an unknowing-however well meaning-leader didn’t incorporate it into the religious ritual because the heathen idol worshipers around them seemed happy with the idea? It was easier to kill an animal, sprinkle blood on the altar, feel their sin is forgiven, then to change their sinful ways. Is this what God wanted? Or what men said that God demanded?

          God made the blood in our body. God made the blood in the animal’s body. Why would God accept blood as more important sprinkled on an altar or flowing from the cross than when it surges through the veins in the living body? God can create an ocean of blood, if, blood is what He wants. Abraham was ready to slay Isaac, for God, when God said, “NO!” Can we call Jesus sinless, if, He went against ‘God’s law of sacrifice’ when He compassionately freed the animals in the Temple destined to shed their blood?

          I use Jesus’ own words to back up my belief that Jesus was sent to teach us how to live. “I must be about my Father’s business.” when He was only 12 years old. “God is the God of the living, not the dead.” Mark 1:38 “And He said unto them. Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also; for therefore came I forth.” And “I and my Father are one.”

          Which brings me to another complaint about church teaching. They use the last quote to mean that God took human form; as Jesus. Can you truly bring yourself to believe that men can kill God? I understand this to mean that God fills all time and all space, therefore we live in God’s space. That makes us one with God and God is the One. Christ is God’s son, a prototype of the perfect man. Jesus was so close to the Father, understood God so well that He became the Christ.

          I suppose you are wondering if you should even consider my ideas. Here is where I will completely lose you but think about it.

          Jesus spent 30 years learning about God. For 3 years He taught and healed. He healed everyone of everything. The only ones who were not healed were the doubters. Jesus knew our Father did not create anything that would harm in any way the children that He loves. Healing is the wrong word because the only thing to change was the illusion they held in their mind. The outer is nothing but the image held in mind. There is nothing but thinking makes it so. The Bible explains that “God is of purer eyes then to behold evil.”

          So I can suggest with complete assurance that Jesus had no fear of the cross. He was so immersed in God’s love He was immune to human belief in pain. We assume He went to the cross as we would…Kicking and screaming; trembling in fear; weak in the knees; crying and begging for mercy. Not so. I think He chose the cross because He was becoming so spiritual His body was changing. He was beginning to glow. I’m not saying He laughed all the way to the cross. I do not belittle what He did. I have deep respect and admiration for Jesus. He is a hero who proved to us that death is not the end of life.

          I am convinced that after 3 years of seeing how humans delude themselves with idol worship of the devil, Satan, sin, sickness and death, and suffering from their belief: nothing material could penetrate His consciousness. Nothing we suffer from is God’s Reality! Jesus suffered more knowing the people He loves and came to teach either didn’t understand His message (and still don’t) or were not interested, than from the nails in His hands and feet.

          “By His stripes we are healed!” Not the stripes He received from His enemy’s whip. It is the stripe of the man; the message He left; the love; and the sinless life He led that are the stripes that heal.

          Why did Jesus die? To prove that life is everlasting and that health and happiness are our Father’s plan for us.

         

          887 words       Loretta Ellen Edwards