The second reason I believe in Jesus Christ is because of sin and evil. I grew up in the aftermath of World War II and learned from survivors of the horrors of Japanese prisoner of war camps and German concentration camps. A book that made a great impression on me as a youth, which was in our bookcase at home, was White Coolies by Betty Jeffrey. Published in 1954 it told the story of a group of 65 Australian Nurses who were evacuated from Singapore just before it surrendered in 1942. Two days later, their ship, the Vyner Brooke, was bombed and sunk by the Japanese. Twenty-two of the survivors were cold-bloodedly murdered and the remainder taken prisoner. In spite of the constant danger of discovery and consequent brutal punishment, Sister Jeffrey kept this diary as a record of three and a half years’ spirited resistance in the face of infamous maltreatment. A few year’s ago it was made into a movie, called Paradise Road, starring Glenn Close. A more recent winner of the Man Booker Prize (2014) which chronicled the cruelty inflicted on POW’s who worked on the Burma railway is The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan.

Later I became aware of the brutality of communist rule. The evils of totalitarianism were enough evidence for me to see the failure of atheistic ideology, and the necessity of being accountable to a God of justice and love. My own life, and that of the world, witnessed to the need of a Savior. The words of St. Paul accurately described the human condition: “so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

The evils in the world, man’s inhumanity to man: corruption, crime, terrorism, exploitation, the way mentally sick people transfer their pain onto their spouses and their children, anger, greed, selfishness, the need to be in control, and so the list could go on, cries out for justice, and redemption. I am convicted of my own sinfulness. My conscience is held captive to the Word of God. I have to deal with my own guilt and failure, my anxiety and despair. The words of St. Paul ring true of my self-awareness: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”

I believe in Jesus Christ because he came to set me free from the compulsion to sin, and the condemnation for sin. By his atoning sacrifice on the Cross he broke the power of sin over me. In exchange for my sinful guilt he gave me his pure righteousness, so granting me forgiveness and acceptance before God. In addition he gave me the gift of his Spirit to enable me to choose freely for good. The personal intervention of God in Christ on behalf of the human race includes the infilling presence of the power of his Spirit to accomplish his purposes in us and through us. I believe in Jesus Christ because he made possible the redemption of the worst of people, and the transformation of their character. He came to heal the sin-sick soul, to make whole the conflicted personality, to set free the obsessive-compulsive and to reconcile those who are alienated. Because God in Christ is love, he can help me to love others, something I could not do in my own strength. Instead of expecting me to measure up to his high standards he came down to my level and offered to live in and through me. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hears my voice and opens the door I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me.”

In St. Paul’s Cathedral in London there hangs a large painting by Holman Hunt called The Light of the World. It portrays Christ holding a lamp in a dark garden and knocking at a door that appears not to have been opened in a long time, for it is covered with weeds. It has no handle on the outside for him to open it. The door stands for the human heart. Christ, the light of the world, seeks admittance into our lives, so that he might banish the darkness of sin, and death. Only we can open that door by faith. He will not force his way in. He offers his grace – his unmerited, unearned gift of salvation. He asks for us to respond in faith, by receiving what he freely offers.

(to be continued)