Some years back, the chorus of Jesus Christ Superstar sang,

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Do you think you’re what they say you are?

Great question! We can tune him out; we can salute him, but not seriously follow; we can "use" him by claiming his pardon but not his power—whatever. But we cannot ignore him. He is always there like no other person who has ever lived. How come?

By his cross he pried open Eden and Heaven and we discovered what God has on his mind for human beings. By his life he showed us what the shadow of sin had covered. For all who listen and think, this young carpenter/teacher is the Benchmark for humanity.

To answer the haunting question, "Jesus Christ, who are you?" we must begin where first-century Christians began. They knew him as a man totally involved in their common humanity. He was not a "reverse astronaut" who came to this earth "out of the blue" merely to tell us that God is alive and well. We can send men to the moon, but they are still "earthmen"; they live within spacesuits that keep them untouched by the real life existing where they land. They live and eat, perform normal acts common to created beings; yet they are insulated from "life as it is" as they tramp around the moon.

Jesus was no astronaut. He became "flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). In no way was he exempt from the general limitations and liabilities that we all are born with. No contrived "miraculous conception!"

Perhaps the most succinct description of his risk in becoming a man on Planet Earth is found in Ellen White’s Desire of Ages:

Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity. What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. He came with such heredity to share our sorrow and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life.…God permitted His Son to come, a helpless babe, subject to the weakness of humanity. He permitted Him to meet life’s peril in common with every human soul, to fight the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, as the risk of failure and eternal loss. (49)

Talk about God’s risk in the great controversy! The second chapter of Hebrews nails these core concepts better than 2000 years of philosophical theologians, who find difficulty accepting the real Jesus as Mary Magdalene or Peter knew him every day. Not many want a Jesus "like every child of Adam" who fought "the battle as every child of humanity must fight it!"

Listen to Paul’s straightforward understanding in the letter to the Hebrews:

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that, is the devil.…Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest.…For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. (2:14–18)

But Paul further emphasizes some of the implications of our Lord’s human experience: "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin" (4:15).

But even more:

Who in the days of His flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." (5:7–9)

That’s why he came and lived faithfully as our Benchmark—to be the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him." He did not come to answer theological or philosophical questions that have puzzled thinkers for thousands of years. He came to show us the road back to "eternal salvation." He showed us the power of his forgiveness and the power of his "grace to help in time of need" (4:16). His life and death answer all the questions that we have been asking for thousands of years.

He did all this at the "risk of failure and loss." He won those battles but his decision to become man was irrevocable. His descent to become our Savior and Benchmark was a one-way street. Forever, all eyes of the universe will see a man limited to time and space—a forever reminder of how much freedom cost God, how far love will go to win back wandering sheep.

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