Week 3 of the Archbishop of York’s book, Godforsaken, explores the meaning of Jesus dying on the cross and what it meant to others.
There were four questions posed at the end of the chapter, but I am not sure that I directly answered any of them because I kept thinking of the tremendous unseen magnetism that instinctively draws us to Jesus.
I felt it was ultimately more than what we might feel for a mother or father, husband or wife, or any other form of relationship. Because what Jesus offers is the perfect relationship. It is what we were born to understand and develop into. It is through personal spiritual evolution that we can draw ever closer to Him.
Many believe that our bodies evolved from sea creatures into what we are today. Others still think we were created in the Garden of Eden. For me, it does not matter one way or the other, but I believe it was in the Garden of Eden that a spark of God’s Holy Spirit was placed within humankind and only Jesus can properly ignite that spark.
The evolution we must endeavour to undertake now is of our spirit/soul as we overcome the world’s trials, which can distort our thinking and behaviour. It is only through the teachings of Jesus that we can we evolve into all we were made to be. And through his death and resurrection, we have hope of the wrongdoings of humankind being completely overcome.
This pull that Jesus has is somehow within in us all still today and draws people like a magnet to Him all over the world.
As we seek to achieve this inherent desire for fulfillment, many of us go down all the wrong paths and eventually die, never understanding that it was Jesus they were searching for all along.
I think St Augustine summed it up perfectly when he said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Archbishop Cottrell’s book ‘Godforsaken’ is available online or from your local bookshop.
