About Jesus, I'm not chidding but explaining

I occasionally see posters and signs that express faith in several of the popular ways. Those are great and one thing I enjoy about "the Bible belt," where people have faith and proudly demonstrate it, in both word and deed.

I'm a little uncomfortable with signs that explicitly say, however, that "Jesus was born to die." While I understand the faith behind it, I have to tell you that many have come to misunderstand that Jesus didn't just come in order to tick off on the To Do list, to die.

If the only reason that Jesus came was "to die," then he would have been stoned by a Jewish congregation at the first synagogue that he preached. You have to think that through carefully. Literally, if the ONLY thing that Jesus had to do to "save" humanity was to "die," then God would have had him get up at the first "pulpit" (the synagogue) and be stoned at his first utterance. This would demonstrate the sinfulness of humans like nothing else would have, and have then been in perfect harmony of the belief that he just came to die and redeem humanity.

So the point I am making is that God sent Jesus to BRING THE NEW COVENANT. It was obvious that in the bringing of the New Covenant, that Jesus would be persecuted and killed. So Jesus "died for humanity" but he did so only in the good timing of God's, which was after Jesus had long enough time in his public ministry to reach thousands of people (at a sitting, sometimes), perform many miracles (thus establishing his authority as given by God) and train on a daily basis the Apostles and disciples who would give birth to the Church body.

Christianity only exists today because of the two plus years of the public ministry of Jesus Christ and ALL of the actions he undertook during that time, including the day to day teaching of the Apostles and disciples that the Gospel clearly records. But most importantly is what he trained them in: the understanding of the New Covenant that God has made with his people to fulfill the prophecies and the ongoing life blood of the Old Covenant.

I have to remind people of this because not only do Christians need to understand this in order to be more perfected in your faith formation, but in this culture of death you must be prepared to be apologists and explain to secularists who are too eager to view Jesus as literally, sent to earth only for the death. This is where much of the demeaning of the personage of Jesus Christ in the trash of the popular, and even "scholarly" press is coming from. There is a basic misunderstanding that neglects due consideration to ALL that Jesus "did:" that all of the Old Covenant was fulfilled, and much of it carried into the New Covenant, but in a new sacramental relationship with God to replace much, but not all, of the Law.

The obvious example is baptism. If Jesus had not been baptized and therefore codified this as a sacramental ritual, it would not be in the Christian body of acts (if Christians even existed at all) today. This is the easy example of the most visible part of the New Covenant, but obviously everything in the Gospel and the apostolic tradition comprises what God enpowered Jesus to bring to humans.

Your children are tempted constantly by the culture of death, and I can attest that I know many of them have been lured into New Age "understandings" and "interpretations" of Jesus precisely because there is too much emphasis on the "death" without enough context that while it was inevitable and that it was God's will, it was not the only pertinent event in his entire life. Further, if he had not resurrected and demonstrated his power over death, then clearly he would not have been Jesus Christ. So to focus only on the actual "death," while dramatic, it is a terrible and totally wrong "short hand" way of thinking about Jesus that has undermined both some of the faithful plus excite and confuse many in the "secular" and "relativist" crowd, who due to this misunderstanding underestimate exactly the awesome gift that God gave humanity.

Please see to this and be more clear in your personal formation and communication on this subject. Thanks and blessings to all.