Jesus represented our struggles..

I was taught that Jesus represented everyone. In that representation was a surety that he was tempted in everything. Whenever I went through something in life that was a moral challenge, I took courage in the fact that Jesus had faced something similar and had overcome the same challenge by the grace of God. Jesus did not “sin” in that confrontation and following his example of faith, I could somehow beat sin and not fall victim to that which desired to swallow me whole. That perception was structured by the society I grew up in. One that defined good and bad, right and wrong, and told me that if I was not acting as they said I should, I was “sinning”.

Jesus didn’t represent the religious..

Sin, therefore, was an act that society defined as wrong. It was not an internal objection regulated by an individual, but an outward control that changed with the evolution of society. At one point, a black man would not consider falling in love with a white woman because the white man called it a sin. If this occurred, someone might scorn this man and say, “Shame on you!” Some considered it a sin to not attend church, an act that would certainly lead to one’s loss of their soul. These parameters were shifting tides that changed with the idealism of mankind. Instead of being relative to the human being and their discernment, it was controlled by the consensus of the religious. The religious set the standards using the bible, or other holy text as they understood it, and then policed these rules with a legalism they proclaimed was spirituality.

Jesus introduced a new concept..

Jesus came with a wild concept that bucked the religious system of his day. Why? He challenged the consensus approach and introduced a new concept, one that offended the religious because it wrenched the control of right and wrong from their hands and threatened to steal their power over the people. He essentially broke the back of religion. How did Jesus do that? He called God his father and referred to himself as God’s son. The Jews knew the implications of this statement and they knew their course of action.

Jesus was free from religious law..

By saying that God was his father, Jesus was telling the Jews that he did not need to heed their interpretation of what they called, God’s law. Yet it wasn’t God’s law as much as it had become a religious list of “do’s and don’ts”. Instead of functioning by their over six hundred rules and regulations, he was no longer under the law. Jesus had bypassed their whole system and exposed the fact that he didn’t need their approval, permission or mediation. He had direct access and a mediator was unnecessary. Jesus was able to go to God without having definitions of right and wrong placed upon him by anyone else or their opinions. He was able to tell right and wrong from his own heart, listening to the spirit within.

Jesus had a father..

More than this, Jesus was not relating to God based on keeping rules; a dead works approach. He wasn’t subject to a societal interpretation of law from a group of men drunk on their own power. Jesus understood that there was nothing between him and his father. In a Father and son relationship, no condemnation, no behavior that can sever the relationship. Jesus was free.

Jesus was a son…

By Jesus declaring that he was God’s son, He was telling the Jews that his reward or punishment in life was between himself and his father and no one could overrule this eternally solid relationship. Jesus’ declaration stripped the religious authority of their control and power. It was a dangerous statement and one that said the religious authority had no control or power. That knowledge threatened to unseat the religious leaders, and for that reason, they killed Jesus.

Jesus is us…

Fast forward to our current day. I understand that nothing can separate me from the love of God. My behavior is not the determinant factor in my spirit continuing to exist. I know that I will forever remain connected to the source from whence I came. There is no condemnation, no threat of death, because of the law of the spirit of life. I cannot blow it, mess it up, not do enough, do too much; nothing can cleave me from being a child of my father. I, like Jesus, cannot die. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.