4 Reasons We Need Jesus
Re-Union
The CCC suggests 4 reasons why we need Jesus
457 God became man in Jesus to save us by reconciling us with God. We have all sinned. Romans 6 tells us the consequences of sin is death. Death doesn’t just mean the end of our earthly life. Death as the consequence from unrepented sin means eternal separation from God, but also separation from one another and the complete loss of happiness…
Imagine being locked in solitary confinement, completely alone – forever, with no hope that the pain would end. That is Hell. That is what Jesus came to save us from
Why can’t God just forgive and forget the consequences?
B/C God made us free like Himself and with Freedom comes Consequences. Good choices bear good consequences, Bad choices bear bad consequences. If we want him to remove the consequences, Then He would have to remove our freedom
· We would not be human
Imagine Playing a game with young child
If every time the child made a wrong move you let him take it back, Then the child was not really playing the game, was he? For God to excuse every bad move I make, He would have to take away my freedom. Rather than destroy our human dignity; God became one of us. He suffered the consequences for us; He suffered our death And rose from the dead. Since Jesus is both God and Man, He could bear the consequences as Man, He could rise from the dead b/c He is God. By His death Jesus fulfilled the consequence of our sin. By His Resurrection He conquered death
Sacrafice of Love
2nd Reason we need Jesus… 458 The Word became flesh so that we might know God’s love
How do we know God’s love?
· He died for us
At the Last Supper Jesus tells his disciples,
“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends…”
· Then He suffered and died for us
We should Read the accounts of Jesus’ suffering and death in the Gospel
· There you will see for yourself:
· the outstretched arms of Jesus on the Cross,
· the arms of the God who proved his love for us
· by dying for you and me
· this is the Revelation of God’s love
Revealing Man to Himself
3rd Reason we need Jesus
459 The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness
Jesus reveals what God is really like;
· He also reveals what we should be like
Because Jesus was fully human
· He shows us how to be Fully Human
· Fully Alive
He teaches us how to live by the way He lived
He teaches us how to pray
· By the way He prayed
He teaches us to live Mercy
· Through his own example of Mercy
He teaches us how to fight Temptation
· To be calm in the storms of life
· To have courage under persecution
· To deal with rejection, privation and want
· To be patient in suffering and death
A wonderful old Benedictine monk, Fr. Adrian,
· when we would be in the sacrament of Reconciliation
· he would turn to a small statue of Jesus and say to me
· How would Jesus handle these situations?
· Michael you must live like the Master
Read and think about the life of Jesus in the Gospel
· For we must learn to live like the Master
Made Into God
4th Reason we need Jesus…
460 The Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature. For this is why the Word became Man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God. For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he made man, might make men Gods.
The whole point of life is to be Reunited to God
· Sin had separated us from Him
· The distance between us was impossible to bridge
Imagine Two Shores separated by a body of water no one could swim
You would need a bridge to cross over
· We need a bridge from God to man
Where are God and man joined together?
· In the Body of Christ
That is why Jesus gives us the Eucharist!
· The Body of Christ is the bridge to cross over to God
John 6:54 Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life
Judas or Peter
Through the Incarnation man is reunited to God
· God is man.
· Now man can become God (460)
If Christ is the one who bridged the gap between God and man,
· then for humans to get to God,
· we have to go through Christ.
· There's no other alternative.
Cardinal Sarah
“The West is engaged in a process of self-destruction, despite scientific and technological success and an appearance of prosperity. Peter the Apostle betrayed Jesus, denying he ever knew him. Then he tasted the bitter fruit of this desertion: a boundless sadness and loneliness that could have led him to suicide, like Judas, if he had not met the eyes of the Lord who was begging for his love? (…)
“Let us now ask ourselves this question: Will the West in the 21st century choose the attitude of Judas, that is, suicide or self-destruction, because it does not dare return to its Christ, or shall it turn back to Jesus, the only Savior of mankind live?