The Hebrew word Yeshua means many things. It means to rescue, to help, to defend, to preserve, to make free, to attain victory, to bring to safety, to heal, and to save.
Through translations Yeshua became the word Jesus. In Jewish tradition, God “becomes” our Yeshua. In Christian tradition, this is literally God becoming Jesus (as was Jesus’ claim, to be fully man and fully God on Earth.)
All of the things that Yeshua (Jesus) means are the true deep needs of humans. These are the things that we yearn for, work for, create for, etc. Yet, all of these things are answered with one word (person), Yeshua, or Jesus. Jesus is the thing that we all long for.
Consider this list of needs. In Psychology, there is a very popular “Hierarchy of Needs” put forth by Abram Maslow.
If the needs met by Jesus are “help, defend, preserve, free, victory, safety, healing, and salvation” could these two actually be aligned? Could they be aligned to the approach to faith made by new followers of Jesus? (That JUST occurred to me!)
For now, Jesus is the answer to ALL the needs we have. We can approach Jesus in all of these ways to meet all of our needs. The world is full o distractions that allow us to think that we can meet these needs without him but we remain unfulfilled. It is never enough to try and do these things ourselves…it will always fall short. In fact, evil can promote the idea that there are very human and worldly ways to meet these needs and draw us away from God.
Perhaps another writing to contemplate is a combination of the Hierarchy of Needs and the journey one takes into faith in Jesus.
Mark K.