We exist for others

Jesus’ presence in our history is amazing not only because God participated in the ebb and flow of humanity but he did so as a human being. We shouldn’t marvel just at God participating in human history but we should marvel equally that God became a human being.

God became a human and in his humanity, he was a man for others.

He became a man. He embraced all the complexities of humanity that we face on a daily basis. Christ embraced the realities of connection and abandonment. Jesus stood in the midst of honest communication and destructive lies. He tackled the hard questions of life, sickness and death. These are complexities we see at some point in our lives and Jesus embraced them all.

In being human, Christ participated as well in the reality that we do not exist as individuals. Every human pursues connection with another individual. Furthermore, every human pursues an action that is to the benefit of someone else that is in their sphere of influence.

Jesus was a man for others. 

Jesus Christ breathed on men and women. Jesus touched the degraded skin of the leper and soothed the manipulated souls of women. His words were both the healing balm for the spiritually injured and the cutting sword for the hardened hypocrite.

He was a man who did not retreat from the afflictions, sufferings and questions of others. No, Jesus addressed the poor in spirit, mourning soul and the righteously famished to communicate that their condition had been seen and is now being answered.

We understand that Jesus becoming a man for others was necessary in order to purchase these “others” that his Father had given to him as his people. We see the humanity of Christ in his painful death as one who uniquely and willingly suffered for the sake of others.

The power of Jesus’ indestructible life which is proven in his resurrection has ongoing consequences. We now are included in some mysterious way into what Scripture calls Christ “body”.  Jesus has ascended in victory and we remain here on earth to be Jesus to “others.” Yes that is right. Christians are seen as being in the body of Jesus and we continue to be “that man to others.”

Our inclusion into the flesh of Jesus Christ means that our existence is not exclusively for ourselves. We understand that we belong to a community of men and women who were once those “others,” until Christ brought us into himself. We must understand as well that we are a community of men and women that also exists those who are outside of our community.

We exist to be a voice for those whose voice is drowned out by their own afflictions. We exist to be a hand to women whose hands have been bound by fear and abuse. We exist to breathe life onto faces who are seeking refreshment.   We exist to display to the world that Christ is not only Lord of Heaven but also Lord of Earth.

Don’t waste your life this year. Understand that your redeemed existence is for the sake others. Rise above the weak and unsatisfactory goals of our culture and bring a redemptive grace in word and deed that will echo in eternity.