# 1: So Who Really Is Jesus?
Lots of people ask that question. When Jesus first began to teach publicly some thought he was a long-promised prophet. Other’s thought he was a prophet by the name of Elijah who had returned; returned from heaven! His disciples initially did not know what to think of him. But they hoped he was the hoped for revolutionary leader! That is, they hoped he was going to be the king of Israel, anointed with the Holy Spirit, to run out the Romans who were occupying Israel at the time, and rule in justice and holiness! Muslims? Buddhists? Hindus? Jews? They all think that Jesus was a prophet of some sort that had some good things to say to mankind. But who really was Jesus? Who Is he? The simple, straight-forward answer is that Jesus is God. God who became a human being so that he could live with us, walk and talk with us, and ultimately die for us. Okay. So how is that suppose to work? This God-becoming-man thing? Is it really THAT hard to understand?
Ancient civilizations worshiped gods they thought were half-man, half-animal. The Greeks and Romans envisioned many of their gods and goddesses to look just like human beings, but with divine powers. 
Today we have super-heroes: Alien beings from other planets who come to earth; or gods and goddesses from Norse mythology; or every-day Joes who, through some sort of freak accident, are given powers that no other human being has. So, when it comes down to it, we as human beings kind of like the idea of super-humans, of god-like capabilities, of being altered some way to be able to do what no one else can do!
So, what about Jesus then? Did HE have super-powers? Well, yes. He could change substances from one thing to another. He could walk on water. He could control the weather. He could make many things out of one thing. He could control animals. Cure blindness, deafness and dumbness. He could heal diseases and even raise people from the dead. What would we think of a modern-day super-hero who could do all of those things?
The most amazing thing Jesus did? He allowed himself to be crucified, to be
killed, and then rose again from the dead, coming back to life.
Sure, lots of modern-day super-hero story-lines do something similar. The hero is killed (so it seems), or imprisoned for hundreds or thousands of years, or some such other thing, and then reappears, coming back to life! But those are, ultimately, simply stories. Stories about beings that never existed. Stories about events that never occurred.
Not so with Jesus. That Jesus Christ actually lived on this earth 2000 years ago is simply true. The evidence for his existence is overwhelming, beginning with the Bible, and spilling over into Jewish histories, and Roman paperwork.
So, who really is Jesus?
There is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than for Julius Caesar, Plato or even Alexander the Great! So, the existence of Jesus is not the question. The question is his identity. Why was Jesus crucified? Ultimately for claiming to be God—a claim which he verified by raising a man by the name of Lazarus from the dead just a week before he was executed. And it was also feared that Jesus was really the Messiah, the true king of the Jews. His disciples hoped he would be that, and the leaders of the Jews at the time feared that he was that.
And as it turns out, that is exactly what Jesus was: the Messiah of the Jews. The long-awaited Prophet. Even the Son of God. But the kingdom over which Jesus would reign was not that of Jerusalem and Israel, but one of the hearts of all mankind. Allowing himself to be crucified, and rising again from the dead, Jesus then ascended into heaven, and sent what is called the Holy Spirit to the earth to work in the hearts of mankind.
What does the Holy Spirit do? He brings to light the evil within our hearts, and then points us to the cure for that evil: Jesus Christ. For what is the problem with the evil in our hearts? It kills us. Its end result is death. It actually is the cause of our death. But Jesus does not want us to die. Jesus wants us to live. Jesus wants us to rise from the dead! To live now in his kingdom, and to live forever with him in heaven!
So, Jesus was not simply about sharing good ideas, or insightful life improvements. Jesus was all about life! As Jesus overcame death, through him we too can overcome death. Why? Why can we do that through Jesus? Because Jesus is God. And being God, Jesus is life itself.
