🌿 Why Did Christ Die? Strange question on His so called birthday. He was born for what reason?
🌿 Why Did Christ Die?
For most of my life, I was taught a simple answer:
Christ died to pay for our sins.
There is truth there — but it isn’t the whole truth.
And lately, as I’ve slowed down, healed, listened, and let go of the need to defend institutions, a deeper answer has been rising quietly in my heart.
One that feels older.
Gentler.
Closer to Jesus Himself.
🕊️ Christ Did Not Die to Create Distance — He Died to Remove It
Jesus never spoke as if God were far away.
He said:
“The kingdom of God is within you.”
(Luke 17:21)
If that’s true — and I believe it is — then the great problem was never God’s unwillingness to forgive.
The problem was our inability to open.
Fear.
Shame.
Separation.
The belief that we must approach God through intermediaries.
Christ came to tear that veil.
Not just in a temple —
but in the human heart.
📜 The Book of Mormon: “To Know Thee”
One of the most honest prayers in all scripture comes from a king who had no theology to defend.
He prayed:
“I will give up all my sins to know thee.”
(Alma 22:18)
Notice what he did not say.
He didn’t say:
“to earn forgiveness”
“to satisfy justice”
“to meet requirements”
He said: to know Thee.
The Book of Mormon consistently frames Christ’s mission as relational:
“Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you.”
(3 Nephi 10:14)
Christ dies — and rises — to make nearness possible.
🌾 The Nemenhah: Union, Not Transaction
The Nemenhah Records speak often of the Peacemaker’s mission not as appeasement, but as reunion.
They teach that mankind fell into:
fear
division
forgetting who they were
And that the Peacemaker came to restore remembrance.
In the Nemenhah understanding, sacrifice is not about blood demanded by God.
It is about love poured out to awaken the soul.
Christ walks fully into suffering — not because the Father requires pain — but because we are trapped by it.
He shows us:
how to surrender without fear
how to love without defense
how to pass through death without losing union
🌍 Ethiopia’s Quiet Witness
In Ethiopia, far from Roman control, early Christian communities preserved a quieter memory.
Not centralized.
Not imperial.
Not enforced by councils.
Texts preserved in Ge’ez, associated with places like Gunda Gunde Monastery, emphasize something striking:
Christ’s death is portrayed not primarily as legal substitution —
but as transformative passage.
The Cross becomes a doorway.
A revelation of what happens when perfect love enters perfect suffering and does not withdraw.
This echoes Christ’s own words:
“And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”
(John 12:32)
Not coerce.
Not threaten.
Draw.
👩🦰 Why Women Matter in This Question
One reason this understanding was later obscured is simple:
It couldn’t be controlled.
Early Christian memory — preserved in Ethiopia and hinted at in suppressed texts — remembered women as:
witnesses
teachers
understanders
Especially Mary Magdalene — the first to see the risen Christ.
If salvation is awakening…
If union is the goal…
Then love, intuition, and relational knowing matter deeply.
Institutions prefer certainty.
Christ prefers hearts.
✝️ So Why Did Christ Die?
Here is the answer that now feels truest to me:
Christ died to show us that nothing — not sin, not suffering, not death — can separate us from God.
He died to:
open what was closed
heal what was fractured
invite us home from the inside
Not to build an institution.
Not to demand fear.
Not to replace one law with another.
But to say:
“Be not afraid.”
🌱 A Gentle Invitation
You don’t have to reject anything to hold this.
You don’t have to fight doctrine.
You don’t have to argue history.
Just ask yourself quietly:
Am I living near to Christ —
or am I managing Him at a distance?
The Cross still speaks.
Not to scare us.
But to draw us close.
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