God among Us

Companies that try to market their products overseas sometimes have a language barrier to overcome. For instance, a campaign in Italy for Schweppes Tonic Water translated to Schweppes Toilet Water. Needless to say, not a lot of people wanted to drink that.

And when the Scandinavian company Electrolux hoped to sell vacuum cleaners to American consumers, they chose the slogan “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.” Something got lost in translation.

Jesus seemed to have this issue with His own disciples because they didn’t understand why He had come to this earth in the first place. Jesus came to this earth to die for the sins of the world, but His disciples didn’t get that because it was lost in translation.

Their hope and belief was that He would establish an earthly kingdom then and there, driving out the Romans who were occupying the land. In fact, after Jesus fed the five thousand, His most popular miracle to date, the people wanted to make Jesus king by force.

What was that all about? They wanted to make Him the king so He would drive out Rome. They didn’t understand that isn’t the reason He had primarily come to this world.

However, one day Christ will come back and establish His kingdom. One day, He will rule as King of kings and Lord of lords. But before Christ would wear a crown, He would first have to bear a cross.

Jesus wasn’t a mere man. He wasn’t just one of the prophets. He was God coming to us in human flesh, walking among us. The eternal God confined himself to a single cell and was born of a woman in order to be the Savior of the world.

Who is Jesus to you? Is He the Son of God? Is He the Savior of the world?