This is why he came!

News is out that a highly respected member of the royal family is in town. Why is he here? No one is
quite sure. Everyone’s guessing – one suggesting this, another suggesting that – until at last, at a news
conference, he says why he is here.

It’s coming up to Christmas and Christians are talking a lot about Jesus. How he came from heaven to
earth. How he was born in a stable in Bethlehem and laid in a manger. What a very special person he
was, God’s royal Son. But the big question is this, “Why did he come?” With the help of the Bible we can
hear the answer from his own lips.
On a certain occasion, referring to himself as the Son of Man (as he frequently did), he told his hearers
that “…the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
many” (Mark 10.45). We note the following:

Jesus came to serve. Not to be served (though given who he was, people should have been falling over
themselves to serve him), but to serve. It was his great concern throughout life: “What can I do for
others?” And he did lots. He healed the sick. He cast out demons. He raised the dead. He fed the hungry.
And at the end of it all he died for people. The whole orientation of his life was outward toward others.
He had come into the world to serve, and serve he did. We who are his followers are to be like him in
this. Always we should be asking, “What can I do for others?”
Jesus came to suffer. On every battlefield in the world men suffer and die for others. But that isn’t the
reason they were born. Suffering is something forced on them later by the cruel circumstances of war. In
Jesus’ case suffering and death were the reason. He actually came to give his life. To lay it down for
others.

It’s the extraordinary link between Christmas and Easter. Jesus’ death on Calvary was no unforeseen
tragedy, a defeating of the great end of his existence. On the contrary, it was the very object of his
coming. He quite literally was born into our world to die.
Jesus came to set people free. Here we come to the climax of his statement. He gave his life “as a
ransom for many”. We all know what a ransom is. It is a price that is paid to set someone free. Jesus is
saying – “that’s why I came – so that by my death I might set people free”. Free from what? From the
guilt of our sin. From the punishment that our sin deserves. From sin itself. From the dreadful effects of
sin on our bodies. From its disastrous impact on our friendship with God. It couldn’t be done for nothing.
Only at the price of Jesus’ life. And freely, lovingly, for our sakes, he paid that price.
So we don’t need to guess, do we? We know why he came. He tells us himself. To serve. To suffer. To set
people free.

But we mustn’t leave it at that. The freedom Jesus purchased at such a very high price is a freedom each
of us needs. It is a freedom, too, that each of us may have. It’s what makes the story of his birth the best
news in the world. In Jesus a liberator was born who can set you free from the damning guilt and
destructive power of your sin. Look to him for that freedom and give him no rest until it is yours.