God’s 33 years visit to Earth
|
Rev L Simon Raomai
What was the greatest single event ever in record at history ? Is it the first breathtaking event of man to walk on moon ? I am sure many will quickly call it that, but I beg to disagree.
My amazement and wonder is not the landing of man on moon of Niel Amstrong, Michael Colling and Buzz on July 20, 1969 in Apollo 11 but God’s coming down to this earth leaving behind the beautiful paradise and His royal throne to our sin-sick world in the person of His son Jesus Christ, the prince of peace for a mission of reconciling the human kind into Himself is the greatest ever single event in recorded history (2 Corinthians 5:19).
God paid a visit to our planet on Christmas silent night and holy night over two thousand years ago ! That is essentially what the Incarnation was-God interjecting Himself into the stream of human life, fracternizing with man who He had created entering into His joys and sorrows, and ultimately taking in His own body the judgement demanded by a Holy God against spiritual treason. The Bible says this celestial visitor was “the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3).
The Bible also says in John 1:14 the word became flesh and made His dwelling among us as one of us. God shared our babyhood, our youth, walked earth’s highways and byways : He ate our food,drank our water, experienced our sorrows, tasted death-and then broke its claim on us by rising from the dead!
The one who reported these things were sober, intelligent, sincere. You will find no levity, no spoof, no audacious hyperbole in their writings. They were no nonsense through and through. A movement as vigorous and revolutionary as early Christianity could not have evolved from a myth. I contend there is no way to account for the assurance and the endurance of the young Church short the fact that those Christians knew that God had come to earth, had lived, died, and risen again in the person of Jesus Christ.
The letters of the New Testament were real letters to the real people, and they mirror a phenomenon no skeptic can explain away. Those people had nothing to gain by subscribing to a fraud. Instead, their faith endangered their livelihood and their lives; it thrust upon them all manner of hardship; it presaged humiliation, persecution, torture-even agonizing death. And so successful were they in witnessing to what they had seen and heard, that succeeding generations were influenced until today almost a billion people subscribe,at least mentally, to the super naturalness of Christianity.
However, diligently the skeptical mind seeks to allegorise this hyper physical event, it cannot be denied that the life and death of Jesus Christ were so extraordinary that history dates to and from the God visited the earth !
I agree that it is impossible to prove to the suspicious mind that it happened. We have ample historical evidence for the person of Jesus Christ, but the fact that He was son of God, the only begotten of His Father God, cannot be proven on the basis of logic, for miracles are never logical. Many scientists are agnostics because they have been trained to accept only what can be substantiated by the application of natural law yet I think it is a grave mistake to assume that everything factual is demonstrable in the laboratory. Yes there is undeniable greatness in our space exploration programme. For one thing, it has brought into sharper focus the omnipotence of God. But if we ask, “What was history’s greatest recorded event?” The answer is God’s visit to this “marble” in space that we call earth; His identification with His creatures through an ingenious plan of substitution and vicariousness. Here the vast needs of the human heart were met. Here the good News was born on Christmas. Here sinful man found the basis for rapport with His Creator.
This is far and away the greatest event in all history. Jesus Christ the prince of peace did come to this world to take us out of hell, but to take hell out of us. He also did not come to take us to heaven but to bring down heaven to us and to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Therefore,He prayed to His father God… Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven
.Jesus Christ the Lord of Lords and the King of kings did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life for the whole world so that we may have eternal life. Jesus said, “I came that they might have life… more abundantly’’ (John10:10). When Jesus visited the world He fed the hungry, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, cast out demons. He also forgave the sinners and transformed their lives. Jesus showed the world the way to heaven and prove His love by even dying on a cross for the sinners like you and me. The Bible says for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
Therefore, as we celebrate this Christmas, remembering the historic event of God’s visit to the world through incarnation long ago, let us rejoice and be glad. Let us reflect His love and forgiveness by loving one another and by forgiving one another. Let us also reconcile with God and with one another no matter what !
Let us live out the gospel of love and peace in a strife-torn State like Manipur. Let the beauty of Christ be seen in the lives of the Christians. Then only we will experience the real meaning and significance of Christmas.
The writer is Pastor Mao-Poumai Baptist Church, Langol, Imphal
What was the greatest single event ever in record at history ? Is it the first breathtaking event of man to walk on moon ? I am sure many will quickly call it that, but I beg to disagree.
My amazement and wonder is not the landing of man on moon of Niel Amstrong, Michael Colling and Buzz on July 20, 1969 in Apollo 11 but God’s coming down to this earth leaving behind the beautiful paradise and His royal throne to our sin-sick world in the person of His son Jesus Christ, the prince of peace for a mission of reconciling the human kind into Himself is the greatest ever single event in recorded history (2 Corinthians 5:19).
God paid a visit to our planet on Christmas silent night and holy night over two thousand years ago ! That is essentially what the Incarnation was-God interjecting Himself into the stream of human life, fracternizing with man who He had created entering into His joys and sorrows, and ultimately taking in His own body the judgement demanded by a Holy God against spiritual treason. The Bible says this celestial visitor was “the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3).
The Bible also says in John 1:14 the word became flesh and made His dwelling among us as one of us. God shared our babyhood, our youth, walked earth’s highways and byways : He ate our food,drank our water, experienced our sorrows, tasted death-and then broke its claim on us by rising from the dead!
The one who reported these things were sober, intelligent, sincere. You will find no levity, no spoof, no audacious hyperbole in their writings. They were no nonsense through and through. A movement as vigorous and revolutionary as early Christianity could not have evolved from a myth. I contend there is no way to account for the assurance and the endurance of the young Church short the fact that those Christians knew that God had come to earth, had lived, died, and risen again in the person of Jesus Christ.
The letters of the New Testament were real letters to the real people, and they mirror a phenomenon no skeptic can explain away. Those people had nothing to gain by subscribing to a fraud. Instead, their faith endangered their livelihood and their lives; it thrust upon them all manner of hardship; it presaged humiliation, persecution, torture-even agonizing death. And so successful were they in witnessing to what they had seen and heard, that succeeding generations were influenced until today almost a billion people subscribe,at least mentally, to the super naturalness of Christianity.
However, diligently the skeptical mind seeks to allegorise this hyper physical event, it cannot be denied that the life and death of Jesus Christ were so extraordinary that history dates to and from the God visited the earth !
I agree that it is impossible to prove to the suspicious mind that it happened. We have ample historical evidence for the person of Jesus Christ, but the fact that He was son of God, the only begotten of His Father God, cannot be proven on the basis of logic, for miracles are never logical. Many scientists are agnostics because they have been trained to accept only what can be substantiated by the application of natural law yet I think it is a grave mistake to assume that everything factual is demonstrable in the laboratory. Yes there is undeniable greatness in our space exploration programme. For one thing, it has brought into sharper focus the omnipotence of God. But if we ask, “What was history’s greatest recorded event?” The answer is God’s visit to this “marble” in space that we call earth; His identification with His creatures through an ingenious plan of substitution and vicariousness. Here the vast needs of the human heart were met. Here the good News was born on Christmas. Here sinful man found the basis for rapport with His Creator.
This is far and away the greatest event in all history. Jesus Christ the prince of peace did come to this world to take us out of hell, but to take hell out of us. He also did not come to take us to heaven but to bring down heaven to us and to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Therefore,He prayed to His father God… Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven
.Jesus Christ the Lord of Lords and the King of kings did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life for the whole world so that we may have eternal life. Jesus said, “I came that they might have life… more abundantly’’ (John10:10). When Jesus visited the world He fed the hungry, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, cast out demons. He also forgave the sinners and transformed their lives. Jesus showed the world the way to heaven and prove His love by even dying on a cross for the sinners like you and me. The Bible says for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
Therefore, as we celebrate this Christmas, remembering the historic event of God’s visit to the world through incarnation long ago, let us rejoice and be glad. Let us reflect His love and forgiveness by loving one another and by forgiving one another. Let us also reconcile with God and with one another no matter what !
Let us live out the gospel of love and peace in a strife-torn State like Manipur. Let the beauty of Christ be seen in the lives of the Christians. Then only we will experience the real meaning and significance of Christmas.
The writer is Pastor Mao-Poumai Baptist Church, Langol, Imphal