The StoryChristianity is, for believers, the most important story in history. It transcends history in that it is the saga of mankind's relationship with its Creator, God. The story begins with the fall of man in the Garden of Eden as God hints at the coming of Christ, after Adam & Eve disobeyed God with Satan's encouragement. He tells Satan that, as a serpent, he will only strike at man's heels, but the Son will crush him. You, who are not Christians & those who are (but question things like the story of Adam & Eve), perhaps have trouble swallowing this idea. No one fully understands the facts of the events in man's earliest history; however, Catholics accept the fact that people are inherently sinful. That is not to say that people are bad. It means to say that, people (good or bad) are sinful. Catholics believe that not one person in our own religious organization is totally sinless.
Because of this sinful nature in mankind, God had a plan to redeem us, knowing that people could never fully conquer sin on there own. This writer believes, based upon readings and homilies heard (sermons), that the basis of sin, "original sin" is the use of our intelligence to usurp God's power, to think we can do (and to actually do) the things that are supposed to be only within God's realm of control . . . to "play God." He gave us the intelligence, but we abuse it. Modern examples might be abortion or human cloning. God's plan to redeem us was alluded to in the Old Testament, where Jesus's coming is hinted, in some way or another, over 30 times. For those who think of that older of the two parts of the Bible is insignificant, it is intricately linked to the New Testament and the story of Christ. It has been suggested, in response to my own questioning of the harsh, legal punishments common in Old Testament times, that the act of Christ taking the sins of all upon his shoulders made those old punishments unnecessary. So, perhaps God did condone those harsh old punishments, the ones that seem babaric and cause secularist to claim that as proof of the evils of Christianity. Perhaps our ancestors had become so sinful that God permitted the punishments that the Bible attribute to him. But our story here, having set the stage, is about the redeemer, the Messiah. When he takes the punishment upon himself, those primitive Old Testament punishments become out dated. Many readers may know this, but many may have never heard any thing about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of Man, from the line of King David. Those Christmas diorama displays you have seen of mother, father and child reveal the birthplace scene when he enter our world. He was the Son of God and Mary, a common Jewish woman, who was chosen because of her purity. She was married and her husband was understanding of the pregnancy once he came to believe the truth of the baby's origins. Of course, in that place and time a pregnancy before marriage, and by another man (or this case being), was a death sentence. The family went to Bethlehem because of the census that required men to return to their place of origin to be counted. While they were there, the baby was born. The family was warned by visitors about danger from King Herod, who was afraid that this newborn "king" would usurp his throne. Those visitors were the "3 wise men" or "3 kings" who knew of the important birth and came to see. When Jesus grew up and began his brief ministry he was eventually arrested and tried. The legal authorities, both the Roman conquerors and the Jewish king, were not bent on executing Christ. The Jewish religious authorities were the force behind the death sentence. They were angry with his new teaching and his claims to be the Son of God. They also resented his power or the threat of his potential power. He had actually done nothing except preach his religious views and had caused no civil unrest or anything like that. So, there was little cause for a death sentence. Christ was scourged (beaten & otherwise abused) and then put to death by crucifixion (being hung on a cross of wood by nails). Prior to the execution, he was made to carry and drag his own cross to the place of execution, Golgotha, the Place of the Skull (Aramaic Gûlgaltâ). Aramaic was the language that Jesus spoke. He was buried in a tomb that was closed with a heavy stone and under Roman guard because of the rumors that he promised to rise and live again. When the women close to him, including his mother Mary, went to the tomb on the third day after his death, he was gone. Later, on several occasions, he visited various of his followers, appearing as a normally alive man. Later he ascended to heaven. His followers were very affected by this reappearance and especially by the Christian event known as Pentecost. The Holy Spirit from Heaven visited them making them very devout and able to communicate the Faith, even in languages they could not normally speak. Because of this inspiration, and its resulting activity, it is sometimes referred to as the beginning or birth of the Church. The true birth of the Church would be when Christ chose Peter to lead the followers once he had left. The whole point of this terrible & wonderful sacrifice is that Christ suffered & gave his earthly life to pay for our sins, everybody's sins. People have to accept the terms to be included in the plan. It's almost like an insurance plan. To use modern imagery, in order to buy into this "deal", a person need only except the truth of the story. If a person can figure out if they can believe it, then it would be logical to become a follower of the leader, the one who accepted the sacrificial role. There can be no greater leader than one who takes the full load of his or her followers, troops, etc. if they cannot handle it. Then, on top of that extraordinary act, (if you've accepted the premise) this noble leader just happens to be the Supreme Being of the universe and of all time. Wow! The whole story is worth reading in its completeness, as this has been just a synopsis. You will also find much to ponder, if you read Lee Strobel's CASE FOR CHRIST. Many seemingly small things actually help to prove the reality of the Christian story. The author points out, for example, that the evidence of the discovery of the empty tomb by the women would normally be discounted in those times. Women's testimony just wasn't respected back then in that culture. They could not even testify in a court case. The fact that almost all of the 12 apostles died for the Faith and all remained true to it is also mentioned by Rev. Strobel as evidence that these men were convinced who Christ was, to the threat of death. |
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