A Savior, who is Christ the Lord

“…a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…” (Luke 2:11)

Jesus is Lord and Messiah (King) and Savior – we need him to be all of these for us.  We need a Savior from the guilt and penalty of our sin.  We need forgiveness.

But more and more I’ve come to realize that, every bit as much, we need Him to be our King and Lord.  We are just no good at governing our own lives.  We keep choosing the way that seems right to us, but again and again it turns out to be a self-destructive choice (Prov. 14:12).  We just haven’t figured out the way to peace (shalom, flourishing, the way things are supposed to be, Rom. 3:17).

So one of the key ways that Jesus saves us is by ‘lording it over us’.  The only way to find ‘rest for our souls’ is to ‘take his yoke’ (that is, his authoritative teaching) and ‘learn from him’ – for his yoke, compared to the one we’ve been wearing, is ‘easy’ and his burden, compared to the one we’ve been carrying, is ‘light’.  (Matt. 11:28-30).