I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, in fact I grew up in a broken home and Church wasn’t part of our lives at all. However I cannot remember a time that I didn’t have an awareness that there was a God. Richard Dawkins has said that children are hardwired to believe in a Creator. When I was a child I knew next to nothing about the Christian God as revealed in the Bible. I had notions about God but these turned out to be wrong. I liked Norse gods they sounded more exciting or the Roman gods.

However, that was to change when I watched Jesus of Nazareth on TV one Easter. I was absolutely overwhelmed by this person Jesus and who He was.

As we didn’t go to church He didn’t come up much in our house but I was confused by Christmas, the celebration of His birth and a few months later Good Friday, how could we celebrate His birth one month and shortly after call His death on a cross a good thing? What was good about it? I found the answer in the realisation of who He was, or as it turns out who He is. You see the answer was in all those Christmas carols that we would sing at school, we would sing about Immanuel, Jesus is Immanuel, okay but what is that? Immanuel means ‘God with us’, Jesus means ‘God saves’. We are broken, I knew I was broken, we are alienated from God and I knew I was alienated from God. I believed He was real, I prayed every night, as far as I can remember but He always felt distant. I assumed that that was Him and not me. Yet I found out that Jesus, this Immanuel, had come to earth to rescue people alienated from God. Like a good shepherd who comes looking for His sheep.

That the horror of Good Friday was much more horrific than I realised and on that Good Friday Jesus, who was holy, who is God in the flesh, died – and He died for me. The Prophet Isaiah says, “He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.”

It was on a railway bridge in Wales that this became real to me as a school friend shared what I now know to be the gospel. That Christ suffered an agonising death, that He was punished for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God. On that railway bridge, I prayed to this God, asking Him to forgive me my sins and to have a relationship with Him. I don’t remember feeling empty or dirty prior to that, though I did feel there was something that I was missing in my life. However I remember I woke up the next morning and I felt like I had a purpose and that I was now clean – clean on the inside, like I had had a bath on the inside of my very being.

I noticed over time that I began to change, I stopped swearing, my temper had gone and that God who had felt distant and far away had now become my closest friend. I also have found that I love God, love this gospel and that it enables me to love others too.

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