A gentle sigh escaped her lips as she tucked the blankets more snugly around her sleeping baby. She wondered if hers was the first baby to spend His first night on earth cradled in a manger. This entire string of events would make quite the story for posterity. The journey to Bethlehem made arduous by her advanced pregnancy. The untimely labor pains. The unsanitized delivery conditions. The birth of a baby boy to a virgin mother heralded by angels and winked at by a star. It would make for an incredible tale. (Luke 2:1-20)
Lightly running the backs of her fingers over His plump baby cheek, Mary ruminated on what the future held for her newborn Son. Every fiber of her being wanted Him to stay at the family home, follow Joseph into carpentry, live, love, and die right there in their hometown. Her heart told her otherwise. She knew who He really was. She knew why He’d really come. She knew He was the fulfillment of the prophecies they’d been hearing for hundreds of years but did she know, did she surmise, did she have even the slightest notion her Son, the Messiah, would eat with publicans and sinners? Did she know He’d speak with unworthy women? Did she know the places He’d visit, the people He’d touch? Did Mary fully comprehend all the reasons He came?
It seems unlikely. How could she? She couldn’t possibly have known about a tiny tax collector who scampered up a sycamore tree in hopes of catching just a glimpse of Jesus. As the crowd lined the street of Jericho, pressing together, hoping to be the one to whom the great Teacher spoke, Zaccheus tried to wedge his way in. It was an exercise in futility. He wasn’t tall enough, strong enough, liked enough for anyone to give way and let him through. Chief tax collector. Wealthy by scam. He had nothing to recommend him. No one to help him see.
Frantically glancing down the road, his eyes fell on a giant sycamore tree. Its strong, leafy branches extended over the roadway. Immediately inspiration struck. Wheeling around, he raced behind the crowd, dodging children and a few straggling adults. With only seconds to spare, he scampered up into the tree and settled in those branches just above the road. Thinking to look from a distance and salvage the pride of needing to climb a tree in the first place, Zaccheus hunkered down among the leaves and branches of the tree. He only meant to look, after all.
Stopping beneath the tree, Jesus looked up at the dangling feet visible through the leaves and called Zaccheus out. By name. He literally said, “Zaccheus, come down, I need to stay at your house today.” There was no hiding from Jesus. He came specifically for this reason. To seek and save the lost. And Zaccheus was certainly lost. Cheat. Scammer. Sinner. Those were all him. Until now. Now he had a reason to change. A reason to do better, be better. A reason to view eternity with hope, regardless of his past. A reason to look in his mirror and say, “I’m the reason He came.” (Luke 19:1-10)
Surely Mary never dreamed her Son would take a seat by a well in Samaria and strike up a conversation with a woman. A Samaritan woman. Astonished to see a Jewish man sitting nearby, the woman was even more flabbergasted when He asked her for a drink. What was He thinking? Jews didn’t talk to Samaritans. Ever. Yet there He sat, calmly asking her for a drink and talking about living water. Water that would eternally quench the thirst of her parched soul.
She badly wanted that water! Her life was a mess. She’d spent years trying to satisfy the cravings of her sin-ridden heart. Husband after husband. Now a man who wasn’t her husband. The things they whispered about her were every one true. Adulteress. Sinner. Steeped in embarrassment, she’d quit trying to change. Hung her head in shame. Avoided the good people in town. Until now. Now she had reason to believe she could change. Reason to think help and hope were available. Reason to believe a heavenly eternity was possible. Even for her. A reason to peer in the looking glass her third husband had gifted her and say, “I’m the reason He came.” (John 4:4-26)
Caught up in his own goodness, the wealthy young ruler never thought for a second that eternal life wasn’t possible for him. He’d earned it. He’d kept all the commandments. Been faithful to his wife. Never killed anyone. The sheer magnitude of His wealth made stealing superfluous. His lofty social standing eradicated the need to embellish or alter the truth. He deeply revered his parents. He literally had no faults. No sins. He was flawless. Except he wasn’t.
Never in a million words could that young man have predicted the words that would come from Jesus’ mouth. “Sell everything. Bless the poor. Follow me.” Mouth agape, the man stood in shocked silence. Sell it all? Everything he loved? Give up his lifestyle, his friends, his family, his things? No way! His things were too precious. His status too valuable. His lifestyle too comfortable. He loved them all more than he loved Jesus.
Yet still Jesus offered. Knowing the outcome, knowing the deficit in that young man’s heart, Jesus still took the time to offer. Not some meaningless frippery He’d never have to follow through on, but a genuine offer for an eternal upgrade. Water of life for the dregs of sin. Found-ness for lostness. Heaven for Hell. For some elusive reason, the man declined, leaving us to wonder how often he looked at himself and regretfully bemoaned his loss, saying, “I was the reason He came.” (Luke 18: 18-30)
Strapped to a cross beside Jesus, the thief had no misconceptions about what he deserved. He was getting it. His sin had brought about his early demise. The gaping chasm of a condemned eternity yawned before him. His last hope, his only hope, hung beside him, an innocent man condemned to die. It had been impossible not to hear the stories of healing and redemption and grace. They seemed like dreams and wishes then. Now they whispered hope. Hope for an eternal future. Hope beyond the grave. Hope that the last breath he breathed today wouldn’t be the last breath of his soul.
Turning his head, between gasps of pain and the groping fingers of death, he accepted the gift hanging beside him. Forgiveness. Peace. Eternal life. Surely, on his final sigh, he whispered, “I’m the reason He came!” Because, in a moment of clarity, the condemned thief comprehended what we so often forget. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. All of us. Every. Single. One. (Luke 23:39-43)
We are each the reason Jesus came to earth. We are the reason He took on flesh. We are the reason He endured scorn and rejection. We are the reason He spent so many hours alone pleading with the Father for endurance and strength. We are the reason for His suffering, the beatings, the bleeding, the thorns. We are the reason He endured the nails. We are the reason He fought the harrowing battle to conquer Satan, sin, death, and hell. It was all for us. For me. For you. We all are the reasons He came. (Luke 23:39-43)
Billions of people have walked, are currently walking, and will someday walk this planet. We come from all walks of life. Our faces and skin, accents and languages, customs, and practices are all different. We are all the same. We are all sinners. Filthy. Wretched. Morally destitute. Spiritually bankrupt. There is nothing to recommend us. We deserve punishment for the sin in which we have so gleefully engaged. We deserve eternal death. But God…God sent Jesus to lay aside His divinity and put on humanity that we might gain eternity. We are the reason He came. All of us. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Those who accept Him. Those who reject Him. Me. You. Your neighbor. Your boss. The thief, the scammer, the liar. The addict, the abuser, the adulterer. The murderer on death row and the prison chaplain alike. We deserve nothing, but Jesus gave up everything so we could gain something. The greatest thing. The greatest gift. Life. Abundant. Eternal. For you. For me. For everyone. The ability to look in the mirror, no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done, and say with absolute certainty, “I am the reason He came!” (John 10:10; Luke 19:10; Matthew 18:12; II Corinthians 5:15; I John 2:2; Romans 6:23; Revelation 22:17)
I am the reason He came!!!
Wonderful!