peace with God

 

Over the past few years I’ve been on a path of rediscovery. I’ve given myself permission to ask questions that I once dare not ask. At one point, I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to be a “Christian” anymore. I had such a bad taste in my mouth about the Christianity that I had bought into. My heart was very disillusioned, and yet, there was hope. I somehow knew that God wasn’t threatened by my doubts. My questions were honest and real. The layers were being peeled away, revealing what was at the core of me. In the process, I have rediscovered things that I believe to be true.

Today is Good Friday. In many countries around the world, this day is celebrated in remembrance of the Friday long ago when a Jewish man, who claimed to be the Son of God, was killed by crucifixion. There were many people in Jesus’ day who died this very cruel and painful death devised by the Romans. What makes this particular death so significant? If Jesus was who He claimed to be, then why did He allow Himself to be taken, humiliated and killed by the hands of terrible men? A young Hindu man asked me this very question recently. He told me that many people in his home land of India just don’t understand why our “Christian god” would be so weak. I suppose this is one of the reasons why I thought the truth may lie in Jesus. Many religions have similarities, but it’s in the differences that deeper revelation lies. Jesus deals with the plight of man in a way that no other religion does. His story is so different than any other’s. He’s not like all the other holy men and prophets of the past. He is unique. He is the only one to personally offer a basis for forgiveness. God forgives the sins of the world, not only as an emotional response, but based on an event that is grounded on reality. The crucifixion of Christ is history. It is a fact. The message of God’s love is rooted in something tangible. It is real. But how is the cross an expression of God’s love?

I do think that God cares about our actions. I believe that God is not pleased with how we’ve treated one another. This is why most religions pick up on what is wrong and what is right. There is a right way to treat our fellow man, and there is also a way to hurt each other. Sometimes people think that God should just forgive our wrongdoing, as though it doesn’t matter. However, it matters to the one who gets hurt. It matters to the poor man who’s been cheated his salary. It matters to the little girl who has been violated. It matters to the young boy who has watched his parents be murdered and now is forced to do the same as a child soldier. As human beings, we all have a sense of justice. We get angry when innocent people are hurt by evil men who stop at nothing to make a profit. God cares about all this and yes, it can make Him angry. An all-powerful being who is angry is not a good situation at all. This “angry God” image is very common in religion. Yet, I feel it is incomlete. There is a degree of truth to this idea; however, I can’t believe it is the whole truth. I think we all want to believe that God is loving. As humans, we have this capacity to love, as a parent loves their child. This must be a reflection of the Creator Himself. Assuming then that God feels both love and anger, how does He reconcile these two powerful emotions? How does He deal with the anger He feels over the terrible actions done by the people He loves? God’s anger, fueled by His sense of justice, may cause Him to punish the very objects of His affection – human beings.

So, what do we do with this? Well, we could just say that God doesn’t really care about what we do. This would solve the problem. There are many ways to say this. We could believe that there is no God or that He’s not involved at all with the affairs of men. We could reduce God to some abstract force, making Him non-personal. That would also ‘do the trick.’ The other angle is that we could pretend that we are not as bad as we really are.

We could pretend that mankind is basically “good.” (Even though our history here on this planet says otherwise.) We could also convince ourselves that we can become “good.” If we do all the right things that our religion tells us to do, then God will forgive us and accept our works. But I must be honest, I’ve tried and have failed miserably. In fact, from what I hear, most people can not keep up with the demands of their religion. Everybody breaks the rules, at least in their heart. People are fooling themselves if they think they can walk this life completely blameless. Religion is a hard burden to carry.

This brings me to a rediscovery that I’ve made. Jesus makes the most sense of all this. His story leaves God as God and man as man, without bending reality. His message portrays God as a loving God who does get angry about evil, and mankind with this propensity towards evil. However, here in lies the difference. Out of deep love, God finds a way to deal with His anger, without compromising how He feels about sin. He actually creates a way to sentence and punish mankind for the sins of the world, without having to destroy the people He loves and offers a forgiveness that is based on reality and not the bending of truth. We call it “The Cross.”

I have to be honest, I don’t fully understand how this all happened, but I believe it did. I believe that God Himself willing decided to become a man in the person of Jesus. Only a perfect man could lead imperfect men into freedom. As a man, He lived a life of innocence and this qualified Him to be the one who could save humanity. If Jesus was guilty of any of our crimes, this would mean that He too would need to be forgiven. How would he then be able to offer us something that He himself did not possess? What did Jesus offer the human race? He offered us His own sinless life in exchange for our corrupted one. On the cross, time and space stood still as this massive transfer happened. Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world. Every person was punished that day, but Jesus took that punishment for all of us. He did this willingly. God did this because of love. He found a way to unload the anger and make peace with mankind. He sealed this job by raising Jesus from the dead on the third day. I believe this to be true. It’s the only thing I know that reconciles God’s love with God’s anger, with an end result that is favourable towards humanity. It’s the only thing I know that doesn’t bend the truth. The cross keeps God as God, and doesn’t falsely elevate man. It only provides a bridge between the two. Believing this and accepting what Jesus has done is the path to true peace with God.

 You are forgiven!  God is reaching out to you with open arms.  He has initiated a reconciliation with mankind.  If you want to, you can find God.  The way is open, just tell Him in your own way that you believe.  Jesus once said, “Everyone who seeks, will find.”