The Example of Christ

Extract

The knowledge that Christ was both God and man must be the central fact in the life of every Christian. Because He was a man, He has given an example for us to follow; because He was God, He has given us the strength to follow His example, and for every Christian the central lesson to be learnt from Christ is to love, to give and to endure.

Looking back over two thousand years, the details of Christ’s life on earth can seem very far away. The setting can seem so very different from anything that we have known; the barren, stony hillsides of Judea, the crowded market places, the small white flat-roofed houses, the groups of orientals moving slowly along the dusty roads. Yet so many of the details are commonplace enough. The birth in poverty, the childhood in a poor household, the years as a workman, and then apparent success, apparent failure, death. All that could have happened, all that has happened, in any country, and in any time. The setting alters, but the rhythm of human life and the problems of human choice remain the same. Everything that is fundamental, the capacity of loving, the power of giving, the will to be alive, joy and agony and death, remain unaltered since Christ lived at Nazareth. Yet if only we could see it, they are no longer the same as they were before the Word took flesh and dwelt amongst us. The life that we know, and the death that we know, confronted Christ. He was man as well as God. He lived and died.