If you read the Bible, one thing soon becomes clear: the writers of this book considered the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the events leading up the these, to be very important. The four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, recorded the thirty-three years of Jesus’ life, but devoted almost a third of their space just to the last week of his life.

So what is the meaning of the cross? What is the significance for us of the death of Jesus? Let’s look at a verse from the Bible to try to answer these questions.

Jesus encourages us to think of God as our heavenly Father. This is a thrilling idea, but there is a false notion of the fatherhood of God. People say God is the father of us all, and that we’re all children of God. So it doesn’t matter what we believe: we’re all God’s children and, therefore, all going to heaven.

Jesus flatly contradicts this idea in John 8:42-47. There he talks about some very religious people belonging to their father the devil:

Whenever evil rears its ugly head with such devastating effect as it did in New York and Washington on 11th September 2001, people almost inevitably ask, ‘Why doesn’t God do something about it?’

We recognize the evil, and the question implies that God ought to deal with evil, but do we recognize that we are part of the evil? Evil is always a matter of degree. An IRA bomb planted in a British city and killing a few innocent people is only a few steps away from flying an airliner into the World Trade Center and killing thousands. It’s the same evil in the human heart that leads to both actions.

For many people Christmas is a time about love, goodwill and generosity. We buy presents for those we love, and we look forward to receiving gifts from them. Have you ever wondered why it is that Christmas is the time of year when these feelings are most prominent? Perhaps it’s our feeble attempt to imitate the love that God so wonderfully showed to the world at the first Christmas, when he sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour.