WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRIST?
An anonymous author wrote this piece about Christ.
Born in an obscure village, He was the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty years old, and then for three years He traveled around the country, stopping long enough to talk and to listen to people, and help where He could. He never wrote a book, never had a hit record, He never went to college, He never ran for public office, He never had a family or owned a house. He never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. But when he was only thirty-three years old, the tide of public opinion turned against Him and all His friends rejected Him. When He was arrested, very few wanted anything to do with Him. After the trial, He was executed by the State along with admitted thieves. Only because a generous friend offered his own cemetery plot was there any place to bury Him. This all happened twenty centuries ago, and yet today He is the leading figure of the human race, and the ultimate example of love. Now it is no exaggeration to say that all the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever set sail, all the rulers that have ever ruled, all the kings that have ever reigned on this earth, all put together have not affected the life of man on earth like this One Solitary Life.
What’s it that made countless disciples willingly be sawn in half and be fed to the lions in ancient Rome during the first two centuries following Christ’s life? What’s it that makes a follower of Christ in Bangladesh or Pakistan stick to his faith despite being ostracized and persecuted; what’s it that makes a disciple in the middle east gladly welcome death for faith in Him; what’s it that makes numerous believing people across the globe give up personal comfort and practically everything for a cause to help others in need only because they believe in Christ? What’s it about Christ that those who find Him insist that nothing else of value in life comes even close?
There are numerous aspects of Christ’s life that are truly unique despite the humble life that he spent here on earth. No one else’s birth was predicted by multiple prophecies in incredible detail. No one else was born of God, conceived in a manner he was. No one else lived a perfectly holy life, claimed to be God the way he did and then gave up his life for mankind after predicting that he would be the God-ordained sacrifice for man’s sin. No one else rose up from the dead with multiple witnesses to attest to his resurrection. No one else changes people’s lives the way he does after they receive him into their lives.
When man goes about his life, he is far too busy to even consider what life is about. But when he does, he invariably finds a vacuum within- as though there was a giant missing piece right within the center of his existence.
Just think if a wooden block were to be cut into multiple pieces and you have to put it together. You have managed to put together all the pieces except for the centerpiece. You might find alternatives, including pieces shaped like the missing defect- but unless it is of the same wood and the exact shape of the missing defect, the puzzle will remain unsolved, and the picture will still remain incomplete. You’ve got to find that exact piece that was broken off, to be able to restore the picture. Man’s situation is no different- what a miserable existence! He has to contend with the fact that he is alive on this earth and finds his life broken. He tries hard to put together all the pieces. He gains wealth, power, popularity, a family and a legacy, but stills roams through life like a madman with no satisfaction, no answers and no hope; because he still misses the centerpiece of his life. Imposters and religions arise who claim to be that missing piece. Finally in desperation he turns to the person of Christ (not necessarily the religion of organized Christianity as is found today) and finds that He is the missing piece- and when the piece fits, he knows it. He finds it amazing that he no longer is the restless lunatic, searching for answers; he has arrived. He perhaps cannot explain it to others around him, but he knows that finally the centerpiece that holds together all else has come to him.
In the words of the famous scientist, Blaise Pascal, “there is a God-shaped vacuum within man” and it is only when you find Christ that, that vacuum is filled.
