Advent Reflection: The Need for a Savior

“The Need for a Savior”

by Rebecca Escott

Advent is a time of waiting, anticipating a celebration at Christmas, where we remember that our Savior is born. But before we celebrate Jesus’s coming, maybe we need to consider why He even had to come. Why does humanity need a savior? Why do I need a savior? In my mind, the quick answer is because we are so messed up. Doesn’t the world seem broken? 

Romans 3:23 says, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” 

All… not just the people who don’t go to church. Not just “bad” people. All people. All people have sinned. All people do not measure up to God’s glory and perfection.

Let’s try this object lesson— gather the materials to try yourself or use your imagination— maybe it will help you picture why we need a savior.

Gather or imagine two containers— one with water, one with oil.

What do you know about oil and water? If you remember science lessons, you’ll know that oil and water do not mix. They remain separated. Go ahead and try it if you’ve got the materials. Pour the one into the other.

For me, this is a picture of why we need a savior. We are separated from God. We are sinners. God is holy, holier than words can even describe. Throughout the Bible, people declare that there is none holy like God. The angels declare it; the prophets declare it. Moses witnesses it when God tells him to take his shoes off because he is on holy ground, or when he hid his face in the cleft of a rock or veiled his face because God’s glory was blinding. God himself declares that the heavens are His throne and earth is His footstool.

We cannot stand in God’s presence. In fact we are called in Psalm 96 (v. 9) to “Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; [we are to] tremble before him, all the earth!”

Our sin, our rottenness is repulsive to Him, and yet we are designed in His image, and He longs to be in relationship with us. He wants to “walk with us in the cool of the day”, like He did at the beginning of creation with Adam and Eve. But the way we are now, we are separated. We need something to break through the separation. 

So back to our oil and water illustration. Does anyone know what would happen if you squirted Dawn dish soap into this? Soap is a surfactant. It allows two things that don’t normally mix to be linked together. For those of you geeking out with this chemistry, Jesus is our “soap”. He’s our linear alkylbenzene.

In Colossians 1:13-14 scriptures explain, “God has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.” The scriptures continue in verses 20-22: “through Jesus, God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.  This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.  Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”

There was a time, perhaps it is still this way in Jewish temples, that only a few, very high officials were allowed to go into the most sacred places of the temple to make payment for the people’s wrongs during the year. When Christ died and then rose, the giant curtain separating the common area and the common people from the holiest places and the presence of God was torn wide open. Jesus’s sacrifice made a way for people to be in God’s presence, to break up or erase the separation. 

And that’s why we need a savior.  Each of us is broken by sin. Our families are broken by sin, often generational sin. Our communities are broken by sin and the consequences of that sin. Our countries are broken by sin, and the leaders of our countries desperately need a savior to redeem their work. Our earth, created in beauty and perfection, is also now ravaged by the consequences of thousands of years of brokenness. We need a savior, so come, Lord Jesus. Be our life-spring of living water. Be our sacred oil, sweet perfume for our souls. Come, Lord Jesus.