Who Was Jesus?

A day in the life. Being a Christian today

A comfort and a challenge - a Christian in the community

Who was Jesus? To Christians, who IS Jesus?

The first two sections below give an outline of what Christians believe.

Because Christians believe we personally relate to Jesus, we also post up individual accounts on what it's like to be a Christian today.

Look at our 'about Us' page for information on how Christians are seeking to live out their faith here in Swindon.

You can find out more by clicking on the rejesus site. www.rejesus.com Back to top

JESUS is Lord

Christians believe:
There is one all-powerful God who created the universe
God sent His son Jesus to live on earth
Jesus was wholly human and at the same time God
Jesus lived and taught and showed by example the love of God for all people
Jesus was put to death
Jesus rose from death after three days and was seen by many people
Jesus ascended into heaven
Jesus is alive in the world today
The Holy Spirit comes to all who ask to be their guide and helper
God forgives our sins and gives us a new start
Christians are called to tell the Good News of Jesus Christ
Christians are called to share the love of God with the people of the world.

Revd Dick Gray, United Reformed Church
July 2006 Back to top

So Who was Jesus?

Christians follow Jesus of Nazareth, known as Jesus Christ. Jesus was a Galilean Jewish preacher and healer who lived under Roman rule between about 4BC and about 29AD, when he was executed in Jerusalem by crucifixion.

Christians believe that he was God made human and together with the Father and the Holy Spirit is a member of the Trinity.

Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead after three days, returned to his disciples for a period and then departed from their sight. However he has promised to be with his followers until the end of time.

The main teaching of Jesus is summed up in the Great Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love your neighbour as yourself. (Mark 12 v. 30 & 310)

There are four accounts of the life and preaching of Jesus, which were written shortly after his life on earth, and are known as the four Gospels (Good news). These and other writings from his earliest followers make up the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Christians also use the Jewish Bible, which they refer to as the Old Testament. The Great Commandment comes from the two of its books (Deuteronomy 6: 5 and Leviticus 19:18).

Jesus preached a religion of transformation, peace and service to one?s neighbour as part of a journey towards God which also means life everlasting after death. He valued life on earth very highly, and paid particular emphasis on the fullness of life being allowed to the poor and rejected. Everyone is uniquely created by God, is of equal value and is equally and totally loved. Each person is individually called to turn away from a fruitless, self-absorbed life, to realise how far they are from what they are meant to be, and to start again.

The main prayer of Christians, which Jesus taught them, is:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. (For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever. ) Amen

Christian belief is further summed up since ancient times in the Creeds, the earliest of which is:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Very early on the followers of Jesus shared the good news of the Gospel beyond Judaism. At first it was a religion mainly of poor people in the Roman Empire and followers were much persecuted. However after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century it spread rapidly. It is now the largest world religion.

Five aspects of the life of Jesus are of particular focus to his followers.

Jesus emphasised the personal relationship with God the divine Father. He believed in regular prayer as a source of relationship, strength and service.
Jesus was a teacher.
Jesus was a social prophet, challenging people to a radical reform of their lives and of how they treated other people.
Jesus was a community builder, who gave people tasks and gathered them together around a central meal.
Jesus was a healer, of illness and of personal and social sin.

Christianity came to Britain very early, probably with Roman soldiers from throughout the Empire. It remained in Wales and the West of Britain during the Saxon period, England was then fully Christianised in the sixth and seventh centuries and later Viking invaders adopted Christianity. Christianity in Britain split in the sixteenth century at the Reformation and afterwards. However Christians of all denominations share the same basic understanding of their faith, and today they seek to work together.

The Five Marks of Mission adopted by the Church of England Lambeth Conference and others is as follows:

As followers of Jesus Christ and as part of the universal Christian Church, we commit ourselves to: proclaim the good news of the Kingdom; teach, baptise and nurture new believers; respond to human need by loving service; seek to transform unjust structures of society; safeguard the integrity of creation; sustaining and renewing the life of the earth.

Rosemary Power. Back to top

A day in the life. Being a Christian today

Yesterday finished at 1.30am, trying to sort service rotas, marriage preparation material, conference planning and I cannot remember what else. It was another late night and recently there have been too many.

Today starts grumpily at 6am when I tell the children to stop making so much noise. It continues grumpily, through breakfast and the school run/walk. So grumpily that, once I get my act together, I buy the children some chocolates and my wife some flowers to make up for it.

At 9.15 I enter the maze of Priory Vale in my new parish of North Swindon and visit a couple to talk about their wedding. We have around twenty weddings a year at St Andrews, and I love doing them. One of the great things about the service is that it?s the couple who marry each other; all I am there to do is help two very nervous people say the right words.

I manage to fit in a first visit to Bridlewood School, see the Head Teacher briefly and fix up a time to visit. She was one of those who welcomed me at my licensing service and it?s good to touch base. Then I try a visit to drop off a certificate and gift for a small boy who I baptised the day before. I still find it bizarre driving around Priory Vale, you go from Victorian town houses, to Georgian Terraces to Regency Avenues to Yorkshire Miners Cottages all in three minutes.

St Andrews Ridge is another maze but I find my way though to another wedding visit. And then I take an hour out and go to the gym at the District Centre where I meet two of the people who I?ve already visited in the morning.

The year three children at St Francis School have written themselves invitations to the Baptism of Rosie [the name that they have given to one of my daughter?s dolls]. They come up to St Andrews and its good to show them round the church [their drawings of it are amazing], and to ?baptise? the doll [without getting too wet].

Back home [and running late by now] to pick up the children from school. It?s then a familiar balancing act of spending time with the children, trying to work and cooking tea.

Bath-time, stories, prayers and bed for the children and then at 7.30pm I am out again for another Baptism visit. With forty baptisms a year there are a lot of visits! But it is an amazing opportunity to meet people, share faith and welcome them into the community of the church.

The rest of the evening is taken up with preparing for the meeting of our Church Council on the next day. I want to share some of my vision for North Swindon, stuff around creating community, sharing faith and allowing our lives to be transformed by the love of God. I certainly don?t have all the answers about how we actually do all of that. But it starts with a welcoming church [which we certainly have] and with the call to pray, to listen, to laugh and to allow God to bless us. It is a fun ride.

By MIKE HASLAM VICAR OF NORTH SWINDON. mike.haslam@nschurch.org.uk Back to top

A comfort and a challenge - a Christian in the community

The apostle Paul wrote:

I am not ashamed of the Gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)

Being not ashamed of Jesus today may be met with incomprehension, though the climate is warmer than it was twenty years ago. Having come to Christianity as an adult, I know both sides of the fence. I sometimes get patronised a bit for believing fairy stories, for looking for soft endings, for childishness.

Christianity does bring comfort. It brings peace. It brings daily challenge, to stretch more widely, live more fully, see Christ in other people.

It means that the Gospels are not just a book, that the New Testament is not only the story of a good man and a set of precepts for living a just life, but a means by which God speaks to each of us individually. The stories about, or told by, Jesus, touch our own story, and help us through prayer to understand what God is saying to each of us personally, and each of our communities, here and now. What Jesus says comforts, refreshes, inspires, challenges. And it is all done in love.

Jesus lived one earth two thousand years ago, but lives on in a different way, through each one of us, and between us today.

It is not by chance that Christians are active in the messiest of work, voluntarily or through employment, in prisons and homelessness projects, in the caring and medical profession, in overseas aid provision. This faith stretches and strengthens us to do seemingly impossible things.

Christians function in community. We have to meet with each other regularly to pray together, to praise God and give thanks, to learn new ways to hear the words of scripture, to share the story of Jesus and act together in the name of Jesus.

The meeting in community can be a challenge in itself, for we mix with the people God has chosen for us, not the ones we would have chosen ourselves. We learn to be fully human, to give more of ourselves to our God daily by rubbing up against each other.

We have different styles of worship, different emphases on aspects of the ministry of Christ. We have our different personalities. Somehow, we survive each other. Where the Body of Christ, the community of believers, is strong, we grow together and influence the world God loves for the better.

The personal times of prayer, the intimate moments with God when it is possible to lay aside the concerns of the day and be with God, being loved and cherished for what we are, whether or not we feel anything, must be the sacred centre of what we do. We were each planned for, designed from eternity and therefore eternally valuable.

My belief is that everybody else, however they have lived, whatever they have done, was also planned and loved into being to have a place in this world, and can become part of the eternal adventure of life with Christ.

M.Evans. 2006 Back to top

Here in Swindon

In Swindon, most churches belong to Swindon Churches Together and seek to work for common goals, and to spread the joy of their faith to others. Christians in Swindon are active in every walk of life.

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT Christianity in general, go to the rejesus site, or the sites listed on our Links page

To find out more about Christians in Swindon, about prayer, service to others and work for justice and peace, go to the About us button.

We hope you will enjoy browsing this site, and that you will contact us, or one of the churches near you for further experience of Christianity. Back to top