Lent: Why Did Jesus Really Come?

By Rev. Corey L. Brown, MDiv

Monday, March 11, 2019

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.  By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4 HCSB)

The Jesus in the Christian faith is worshiped more for the physical, like the Virgin birth, the storytelling, the miracles, the crucifixion, and the resurrection.  I submit that Jesus’ appearance on the Earth was the Creator’s way of pointing us to a better understanding of the “humanizing of the divine” and “super-naturalizing of the human.” So, how does this happen? 

Let’s analyze the name. In American Christianity, we currently use the Greek version of his name, Jesus, but we should go back to the original Hebrew name, Yeshuaor Yehoshua, which means to “rescue” or “deliver.” The angel of the LORDgave Joseph the name, Yeshua, to give to Mary’s unborn son (Matthew 1:20-21). I believe the name, Yeshua, was first, a representation of the “humanizing of the divine.” Just as the Creator came down from heaven to the Garden of Eden to create humankind and then to seek humankind after the violation of the command to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Yeshua’s life served as the third documented visit of the physical Creator to walk on the Earth among us.

            Let me leave you with this. The French philosopher, Jesuit priest, paleontologist and geologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.” I contend that we are both human beings having a spiritual experience and spiritual beings having a human experience. I believe this is the real reason for Yeshua’s time here on Earth, to show us that we are both human and divine. Blessings.