Why Jesus Died   By the Rev. Howard Bess  Though divided into
innumerable groupings, the roughly 2 billion people who call
themselves Christians hold one belief that identifies us all. We
believe that God was uniquely present in the teacher/prophet
Jesus from Nazareth.  In Paul’s words “God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself.” Christians almost universally
believe that Jesus was fully human and also fully divine. Put
another way, Christians believe there is a Jesus of history and
a theological Jesus somehow united in one person.  El Greco's
depiction of Jesus driving the moneychangers from the Temple.
Through history and continuing today, Christians have been much
more interested in the theological Jesus than in the Jesus of
history. Churches have focused on the miracle worker who healed
the sick, raised the dead, multiplied loaves and fish, and
walked on water, the Jesus who died for the world’s sins, was
raised on the third day, ascended into the heavens and now sits
at the right hand of his Fa