Author: Šinko Jurica

I still remember the first time I walked down those slippery, worn-out limestone steps into the Grotto of the Nativity. The air down there is thick—heavy with beeswax, old incense, and the murmurs of people who have traveled thousands of miles just to stand in a cave. Squeezed between a tour group from Nigeria and a family from Italy, a thought hit me. It wasn’t a spiritual revelation. It was the historian in me nagging: “Was Jesus Christ born in Bethlehem, really? or is this just a nice story we tell ourselves?” It’s the question that won’t go away. We…

I was six years old, and my dad’s bathrobe smelled faintly of mothballs. That’s what I remember most. I was standing on a scratchy wool rug in the church basement, clutching a plastic shepherd’s crook and trying not to trip over the hem of the robe. “Mary” was a girl named Sarah, and I was terrified to make eye contact with her. We shuffled toward a cardboard box filled with yellow construction paper—our “manger.” We were acting out the scene everyone knows. The grumpy innkeeper. The slammed door. The lonely walk to a barn out back. Jesus born next to…

I was seven years old, standing on a plywood stage in a bathrobe that smelled like my dad’s closet. I was holding a crooked stick I found in the backyard. To my left stood three other kids in paper crowns, and to my right was a nervous girl named Sarah holding a plastic doll wrapped in a tea towel. We froze there, smiling for the parents, creating that perfect, silent snapshot of the nativity. It was cute. It was heartwarming. And, historically speaking, it was a total mess. We’ve all seen the Christmas cards. The snow is falling gently. The…

I can still smell the stale coffee and pine needles from a Christmas Eve twenty years ago. I was sitting on the floor of my first apartment, surrounded by half-packed boxes, staring at a plastic nativity set I’d picked up at a drugstore. My life was a mess. I was broke, lonely, and frankly, cynical about the whole “joy to the world” routine happening outside my window. I picked up the figurine of the baby Jesus—cheap plastic, badly painted—and wondered if it was all just a nice fairy tale we tell ourselves to survive the winter. That night, stripped of…

I still remember the smell of the old carpet in my childhood Sunday School classroom. It was that distinct mix of stale crackers, glue sticks, and rain. I was eight years old, sitting cross-legged in front of a felt board that displayed a very sanitized version of the Nativity. The teacher, Mrs. Gable, was carefully placing a felt figure of Joseph next to the manger. She smoothed him out with her thumb. I raised my hand. I didn’t mean to be disruptive, but the math wasn’t adding up in my head. “If God is Jesus’s dad,” I asked, “why is…

I still remember the scratchy wool of my Sunday best and the smell of old hymnals. I was maybe eight years old, sitting in a Christmas Eve service that felt like it had been going on for three days. The pageant was peaking. A girl from my third-grade class, wrapped in a powder-blue sheet, sat center stage clutching a plastic doll like it was fragile glass. I nudged my dad, confused by the hierarchy of the scene, and whispered, “Why does she get the big chair?” He didn’t look up from his program. He just smiled out of the corner…

I still remember the specific smell of the church basement where we held the annual Christmas pageant—a mix of floor wax, old coffee, and nervous sweat. My niece had just landed the role of Mary. She was twelve years old, skinny as a rail, draped in a blue bedsheet that had seen better days, and clutching a plastic doll with a seriousness that only a pre-teen can muster. As she walked down the makeshift aisle, trying desperately not to trip over the hem of her costume, a thought hit me like a freight train. We usually cast kids in these…

I can still smell the mothballs on that bathrobe. I was seven years old, standing center stage in the sanctuary of a small Baptist church in rural Ohio, and I was miserable. Outside, a relentless blizzard was burying the church parking lot under two feet of snow. Inside, I was sweating bullets under heavy wool, clutching a crooked staff made from a broom handle wrapped in black electrical tape. I was a shepherd. At least, that’s what the program said. We were singing “In the Bleak Midwinter,” and I remember gazing out the frosted stained-glass windows. I watched the snow…

My dad had this ancient, chipped plaster nativity set that he bought at a garage sale before I was born. Every year, right after Thanksgiving, he’d haul the box down from the attic. It smelled like old newspaper and dust. My job was specific: set up the scene. I was the kid who obsessed over the details. I’d line up the camels, make sure the wise men were approaching from the “East” (the kitchen), and place the baby Jesus dead center. I remember asking him one year, “Dad, was it really like this? Like, on this exact day?” He shrugged,…

My hands were freezing. I was maybe ten years old, standing in the front yard holding a tangled ball of Christmas lights while my dad cursed under his breath at a plastic wise man. It was mid-December, and the wind cut right through my jacket. I looked at the nativity scene—Joseph, Mary, and the baby lying in an open box—and then I looked at the frost on the grass. “Dad,” I asked, teeth chattering, “wouldn’t a baby die out here?” He stopped hammering the plastic stake, wiped his nose, and looked at me. “Probably,” he said. “But this is when…

I still remember the exact moment the question stopped being academic for me. I wasn’t sitting in a comfortable library or listening to a sermon in a heated sanctuary. I was shivering. It was late December, standing in Manger Square, and the wind was cutting right through my jacket. The air smelled like roasted chestnuts and diesel fumes. Standing there, wedged between a group of Nigerian pilgrims singing hymns and a local vendor selling sesame bread, I looked at the ancient stones of the church. I realized that asking where was Jesus Christ born isn’t about pinning a location on…

The first time I really thought about this, I was standing in the middle of the Roman Forum, sweating through a linen shirt that was a bad choice for July in Italy. The heat was radiating off the cobblestones like an open oven door. Tourists were swarming around the Arch of Titus, snapping selfies, but I was staring at a pile of broken marble that used to be the Senate House. I felt a weird disconnect. I was looking at the epicenter of the most powerful war machine the ancient world had ever seen. These stones heard the footsteps of…

I’ll never forget the smell of the old library basement at my university. It was a mix of dust, decaying paper, and floor wax. I was twenty years old, fueled by cheap vending machine coffee and a chip on my shoulder. I sat across from a guy named Dave—a philosophy major who loved to dismantle everything I held dear. Dave leaned back in his plastic chair, crossed his arms, and dropped his favorite grenade: “You know Jesus never existed, right? The Romans invented him to control the poor. Show me one non-Christian writer who even mentions the guy.” I didn’t…

I can still taste that terrible coffee. It was 2:00 AM in a cramped dorm room that smelled like gym socks and old paper. My roommate, a guy named Dave who had a poster of Einstein taped crookedly over his bed, slammed a heavy book onto his desk. He spun around in his chair, looking me dead in the eye. “He’s a myth, man,” Dave said, sounding tired but triumphant. “Just like Zeus. Or Thor. The guy never even lived. It’s all a fairy tale to keep people in line.” I sat there on my bunk, clutching a lukewarm mug,…

It was 2:00 AM, and the dorm room smelled like a nasty mix of stale pepperoni and burnt coffee. My roommate, Dave—a biology major who didn’t believe anything he couldn’t dissect—leaned back in his chair. He looked exhausted. He tapped his pencil on a textbook and dropped a grenade into the silence. “You know,” he said, “there’s probably more evidence for King Arthur than for Jesus. It’s all just a myth, right? Is there scientific proof that Jesus Christ existed, or did we just invent him to feel better?” I didn’t have an answer. That question bothered me for years.…

The question just hangs there, doesn’t it? It echoes through two millennia of art, debate, and deeply personal faith: Did Jesus Christ come in the flesh? This isn’t some trivial historical footnote. It’s not just a line you murmur in an old creed. This is, quite possibly, the most central, audacious, and world-tilting claim of Christianity. The entire faith balances on this single, radical point. The idea is so huge that we’ve almost become numb to it. Think about it. God—the infinite, unseen, cosmos-breathing creator—became a finite, fragile, visible human being. He didn’t just wear a “human suit” or project…

It’s a question that echoes through two millennia of history, art, and philosophy. It’s whispered in churches, debated in university halls, and pondered in the quiet of our own hearts. Was Jesus Christ a man? It’s an easy question to skim past. We tend to focus so intently on the divine side of the equation. The miracles. The walking on water. The resurrection. We see the stained-glass icon, the serene figure in a white robe, and we can lose sight of the person who walked on dusty, gritty roads and got calluses on his hands. But this isn’t just some…

It’s one of the oldest and most profound questions in human history. For over two thousand years, billions of people have wrestled with the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. The central claim of Christianity isn’t just that he was a good teacher or a prophet. The claim is that he was, somehow, both God and man. This paradox is the bedrock of the faith. But let’s be honest. It’s a difficult concept to wrap your head around. When I was a kid in Sunday School, I’d get stuck on this. I would hear the stories of him healing the sick…

It’s a name that defines an era, a name recognized in every corner of the globe: Jesus Christ. We hear it in hymns, see it carved into stone, and speak it as a central part of the Christian faith. It’s arguably the most famous name in human history. But is it the name his mother called out to him? Is it what his friends shouted across the dusty streets of Nazareth? This question—what is Jesus Christ’s real name?—sends us on a fascinating journey. It’s not about “debunking” anything. Not at all. Instead, it’s a journey that travels back two millennia,…

It’s easily the most famous name in human history. Billions speak it every day. In prayer. In anger. In song. But how often do we really stop to think about what it means? We hear “Jesus Christ” so often that it can blend into a single phrase, just a name. It’s not. It’s so much more. So, what does the name Jesus Christ mean? The answer isn’t a simple definition. It’s a journey into ancient languages, deep theology, and a claim that changed the world. Unpacking this name is like finding the DNA of the entire Christian faith. It’s not…

We hear the name all the time, don’t we? In songs, in churches, on street corners, and just splashed all over historical texts. “Jesus Christ.” It’s almost always said as a single name, like “Jesus” is the first name and “Christ” is the last. But have you ever really stopped to think about it? I have. For years, I just accepted it. It was his full name, like “John Smith” or “Tom Jones.” The truth, though, is so much more fascinating. It’s a truth that unlocks the very foundation of an entire global faith. “Christ” isn’t a family name. Not…

It’s one of the most common questions out there, whispered in classrooms or typed into a search engine late at night. We hear the name “Jesus Christ” as a single unit, all the time. We say it in prayer, we hear it in movies, some people shout it in anger. The two words just feel permanently fused together. So, it’s no surprise this leads to a fundamental question: What is the difference between “Jesus” and “Christ”? For a huge part of my childhood, I didn’t even know there was a difference. I’m not kidding. I just thought “Christ” was his…

It’s one of those questions that hides in plain sight. We say the name “Jesus Christ” so often the two words just fuse together. It rolls off the tongue like a first and last name. But it’s not. “Jesus” was his given name, the one Mary called him for dinner. “Christ” is a title. It’s a job description. It’s a massive, world-changing declaration. So, it makes you stop and think: When did Jesus become “Christ”? Was it at his birth, in that dusty manger? Was it at his baptism, when the sky opened up? Did it happen when Peter had…

What’s in a name? Or, maybe more to the point, what’s in a title? When I was a kid, my world was defined by titles like “son,” “student,” or “neighbor.” As I got older, new ones took over: “employee,” “husband,” “father.” Each one represents a different part of who I am, a different set of responsibilities. We use titles every day. They’re shortcuts to help us understand our world and the people in it. But when we turn to the Bible, we find one figure who has more titles than anyone else: Jesus of Nazareth. It’s a truly staggering list.…

It’s the most famous name in the world. Period. For billions, it’s a name of worship. For others, a historical figure. For many of us, it’s just part of our cultural wallpaper, a name we say without a second thought. But have you ever really stopped to ask, where did the name Jesus Christ come from? It sounds like a simple first and last name, like “John Smith.” It’s not. Not even close. The story of this name is a fascinating, wild journey. It’s a linguistic trip that crosses thousands of years, multiple empires, and several languages. It starts as…

I still remember the feeling. It’s as clear as day, even though I must have been seven or eight. I was running through the hallway—which I knew I wasn’t supposed to do—and my elbow caught my mom’s little porcelain vase on the hall table. It wasn’t expensive, but I knew she liked it. I saw it teeter, and I couldn’t catch it. The crash on the hardwood floor sounded like a bomb. A few minutes later, my mom came in. She didn’t yell. She just had that calm, all-knowing mom-voice. “What happened to the vase?” My heart was a trip-hammer…

It’s a question that hits differently, doesn’t it? It’s not just a debate-club topic. It’s the one that hangs in the air when we’re staring at a ceiling fan at 3 AM, or when we’re holding a newborn, or when we’ve just gotten the worst news of our life. We all have to face the wall of mortality. We all wonder if this is it. For billions of us, the answer to that massive, terrifying “what’s next?” question boils down to a much more specific one: Is Jesus Christ alive? Think about it. If he’s not, if the resurrection was…

It’s one of the most profound and mind-bending questions a person can ask about the Christian faith. We all know the Christmas story—the baby in a manger, the shepherds, the wise men. That narrative is a beginning. But was it the beginning? Or was it just the beginning of a new chapter in a story that was already ancient? The question, “Did Jesus Christ always exist?” cuts to the very core of who he is. Is he a created being, even the most magnificent one? Or is he, in his essence, eternal God? For many, this is a complex theological…

It’s a question that cuts right to the chase. For over 2,000 years, it has sat at the very heart of the Christian faith, both challenging believers and arming skeptics: Was Jesus Christ perfect? On the surface, for billions of people, the answer is a simple, automatic “yes.” It’s a core tenet of the faith. But what do we actually mean by that? Do we mean he never stubbed his toe, never got sick, or never had a moment of pure, human frustration? Or are we talking about something else? Something deeper, tied to his very nature and his entire…

Let’s be honest. This is one of the biggest questions in all of Christianity. Isn’t it? You dig past the surface, and this one is sitting right there, waiting. It’s not some side-quest. It’s the main event. We hear “Son of God,” “Messiah,” “Lord.” All the time. But what about the big one? Is Jesus Christ the Most High? That title… “Most High.” It just hits different. It feels singular. Final. It’s a title of complete, supreme sovereignty. That’s God’s title. The Father’s. The Almighty’s. So, can it also belong to Jesus? This isn’t just some dusty theological question for…