God came to earth as a man, the man Jesus. How could anyone believe that?
If it did happen, how would we know it? How could we know it?
If we start with what we know and try to reason it out, we cannot accept the idea that God came to earth. From that basis we cannot reject the idea either.
How could so many people over the centuries have come to believe that God did come to earth as a man, as the man Jesus?
They believed because God revealed himself to them. Sometimes he did it dramatically, with visions and miracles (that is, events that defied natural laws). But usually, he told them who he was through small nudgings and gentle touches to their souls.
Turning to Jesus, even tentatively, they experienced something that was more true and loving than anything they had ever experienced before. Someone spoke to their hearts a word of reassurance.
This sense of God's presence doesn't often happen the first time that a person considers Christianity. It may take some time, some prayer, some seriousness about wanting to find God, to connect to him. I believe that it requires Jesus' intervention on our behalf. He is both God with us and the way to God the Creator.
People over the centuries have persevered in their belief in Jesus in part because the Christian story of God's relationship to man makes sense of the world.
There is a mystery to human life. Evolution may account for how our bodies came to be as they are, but it doesn't explain our souls. There is something extra in man. Just look around you at all that we've created.
We test a scientific theory not by looking at the theory in isolation but by seeing how well it accounts for the data. A good theory reveals the simplicity, beauty, and order in otherwise apparently random and chaotic facts.
The Christian view of the world makes sense of man's behavior. It makes sense of my behavior. It also presents a way of living that brings more beauty, order, and simplicity to our otherwise chaotic lives.
The harmony evident in a deeply Christian life supports the truth of the Christian faith.
We find the truth of God by wanting to hear it, really wanting to -- even more than we want to be right.
The difficult thing about the idea that God came to earth as a man and interacted with ordinary people like us, is that it means he knows us, in detail. We can't push him out to distant galaxies and tell ourselves that our little lives don't interest him.
Jesus knelt; he cried; he got angry; he healed. He was human, and yet somehow, by a mystery that no one understands, he also was God.
Those who believe this believe it in part because deep within themselves there is an attraction, a sense that there is truth to be found here.
They believe because, when they base their lives on this fact, they find greater joy and also greater wisdom.
And they believe because Christianity answers the fundamental questions of existence. What is mankind? Why are we here? What are we for?
Jesus said to come as little children, knowing full well that children are not docile followers.
He wanted us to come full of questions, engaged, curious, knowing that this is all bigger than we are, not expecting to master it, but wanting to know more about it, recognizing its importance.
Read on . . .