Who was Jesus?
Like all of humanity, Jesus is a complex person with many sides and facets to who he was and is. Throw in the fact that he was not only fully human but is also fully God and now we have an even more interesting person to understand.
Lets start by looking at the human qualities of Jesus during his lifetime.
Jesus was a first born son to very young and inexperienced parents. His birth wasn’t planned. It was a surprise and very unexpected. His birth was controversial and caused immediate division in his parents community and family. He was born into a working class and even possibly impoverished family. His father was a wood worker and carpenter and his mother was most likely not working outside the home.
When he was born, he was immediately despised and hated and local government rulers tried to kill him. Very early in his life his family had to flee their country because of this violence and became refugees in a neighboring nation. They had to make this long journey on foot and Jesus would have spent his first few years of life moving around a lot and probably not having a stable home environment. Jesus was a middle eastern, Jewish boy and a minority growing up. He most likely had dark skin, dark textured hair and dark eyes. What we today would call a person of color. He always lived in places that were ruled or occupied by governments and powers that did not look like him, speak like him, think like him or know what his day to day life was really like. We can only imagine the brutal racism he must have encountered throughout his lifetime.
We know that Jesus was the oldest of his brothers and sisters and that as they grew up into adulthood, they didn’t always get a long or support him. We also know that his father most likely passed away early in Jesus life. Which would have put a heavy weight on his shoulders to be responsible for his mother and siblings.
As Jesus grew into a young adult, we know that he didn’t care for material things like amassing wealth or power. We also know that Jesus wasn’t especially handsome or good looking. He was single as an adult and its very possible that most people didn’t really notice him or pay him much attention. He was a defender women, a fiend to the poor and broken and a very gentle and understanding man.
Jesus was deeply passionate about the purity of love and intention. He didn’t show anger or aggression at all except for when religious leaders where leading people away from love and into pointless religious activities. He was against hypocrisy and greed and could even become violent when people disrespected the purity of love and devotion to God. We know that Jesus died young and was put on trial and falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit.
He didn’t serve time in jail, but was quickly executed in his early 30’s in the presence of some of his closest friends and his own mother. All in all, when looked at from a certain angle, his life on this earth was filled with trail, hardship and ended quickly and painfully. However, when we look at his life from a different angle, we will see an entirely different story.
Jesus was not only fully human, he is also very much fully God too.
He is eternal, everlasting and he is the beginning and the end of all of life, time, creation and eternity. He is spirit and he is flesh and bone. Therefore his life on earth was only a little dot on a timeline the never ends going backwards and forwards. He created the Heavens and he created the earth. He lives in the spirit realm but he is also present in our natural world. He is in every flower, every cloud, every blade of grass and cool breeze.
He is with us, in us, around us and holding every molecule of our body together. He is holding gravity in place. He is keeping the sun, moon stars and galaxies in alignment. When you take all this, and put it together, you have a very complex character analysis and you are left with a man who can heal the sick, raise the dead, be raised from the dead himself, walk on water, multiply food, command the weather and conquer the power of death over humanity.
Granting those who choose to follow him not only eternal life in the heavenly realms away from pain and fear. But also, the purest form of love imaginable and the freedom from the weight of pain and fear as we live out our time on this earth.
Jesus is perfect love personified.
If you want to know more about who Jesus is to you personally, I would encourage you to ask him. Every day for 7 days, quiet your mind and ask out loud, “Jesus, who do you want to be to me today?” and see if anything comes to your mind.