Think about your life.  You do try to be good.  You really do. But you always fail. Right?  It is an awesome grief we feel when we fail.   And sooner or later we realize that we will always fall short of the perfect life.  Jesus knew that. 

Sin is separation from God.  How would we ever be able to bridge the gap?  

We could not!  But God could.  And so in the person of Jesus Christ He became man and lived as one of us.  He had the same fears and hopes and dreams as we do.  And I would bet that he had a lot of growing to do as a child too-just like you and me (so forgive yourself for your childhood failures).  But as a man he took on the sins of all of us.  To be a single sacrifice for the sins of all.  

The night before he died, he taught his disciples three lessons.

(1) He gave them a Sacrament in the breaking of the bread and drinking of the wine.  He said that they should repeat this sacrament  in remembrance of Him. It would be through this sacrament that we would be able to receive the Holy Spirit and Comforter so that we could face this world and do His will.

(2) He washed their feet.  This was a task done by only the lowest of servants.  But He did it for each of them.  One of his disciples, Peter, said that he would not let Him do this. But Jesus said that if he did not, then Peter would not be part of his flock.  In other words, not only must we serve but we must also allow others to serve us.  To this Peter said that He should wash his hands and head and feet.  (I always loved the way Peter overreacted. I do that too.   I can really identify with Peter. ;-) But Jesus said that he was "clean" and only needed to have his feet washed.  Jesus ended this task with the statement that they should do this for one another. 

We must wash each others feet.  We must be the servant to others.  We must allow others to serve us as well.

(3)He told them to love one another as He had loved them.  This moved the bar a lot higher.   Jesus loved them so much that he gave his life for them.   

And so we have in Jesus, a path to follow for the forgiveness of our sins(in his death) and a direction to take in our lives.  We have hope that somehow we are acceptable in the eyes of God. 

There was only one last thing that we longed for. We wanted to live and not die.  We wanted to know that our loved ones would go on.  We wanted to see them again.   If only...

And God made a miracle.   Jesus rose from the dead on Easter.    And He told us that He had a place for us where He was when we die!   

What more could you want?  

Thank you,  Jesus!