Let's Go There
The date, Sunday, April 29,
31 AD,¹
The time, just after aruchat
tzoharayim,²
and word finally reaches
your ears, not as a follower of the one they say is the Christ, but as
one who has heard about the miracles He has supposedly performed, from
the mouth of someone who actually saw Him alive days after His very public
execution:
"Jesus of Nazareth has risen."
Whoever you choose to imagine
you might have been in 1st Century Jerusalem, what would you think of such
news? What would you first do?³
Looking Back
The date, Sunday, March 31,
2024 AD,
The time, 9:27am, Easter
worship service, not as yet a believer, but as a seeker visiting a church
on its most hallowed and honored day, you hear the pastor from the pulpit
exclaim:
"Jesus has risen.
He has risen, indeed."
Whoever you are in reality
this particular day in the 21st Century, what would you think of such a
claim from nearly 2,000 years ago? What would you first do in response
at this late date?
Is It Proof You Need?
Those closest to Jesus reported
He appeared to over 500 witnesses over at least 10 different instances...that
after rising from the dead, Jesus
talked with, walked with, ate with,
cooked for, performed at least one
miracle for, allowed them to touch
Him, including His death wounds,
and ascended before them into the
heavens.
Jewish and a non-believing
historian, Flavius Josephus wrote of this time only years after Jesus'
death: "He was [the] Christ; (64) and when Pilate, at the suggestion of
the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that
loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive
again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold."
Other non-Christian historical
accounts near the time record the life, death and resurrection of Jesus,
including Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosota, and Maimonides.
All his life, Jesus' brother,
James, considered Jesus to be not of His right mind. Within a few years
after Jesus's death, James emerged as a born again believer of Jesus as
the promised Christ, and headed the first church of His followers in Jerusalem.
Jewish Pharisee, Saul, bent
on arresting and executing so-called believers of Jesus, met the resurrected
Christ in person, and from that time forward became one of the leading
teachers of Christianity.
Paul, in a number of his
epistles, noted many others who had seen and been with Jesus after the
resurrection, including the Apostle Peter.
And every apostle and many
direct disciples of Jesus chose to be executed for their assertion that
Jesus rose from the dead. Is that the kind of behavior you would expect
of those participating in a charade parade?
The question is how many
witnesses do you need for proof? How can you confirm their reliability?
Truthfully, there is no particular number, and there is no way to confirm
the authenticity of witnesses from the past.
Here are three historical
events, for starters, that we believe worldwide to be true that have
far less veracity than the evidence we have for the truth of Jesus' resurrection:
Did Homer actually write
the epics Iliad and Odyssey in 8BC? While some might argue he didn't, most
would not question his authorship. The truth is, the preponderance
of proof of who penned these classics is mostly heresay.
Did King Arthur ever actually
exist, or is he a manufactured legend? Scant evidence in writing proves
without a doubt that he was even a living, breathing human being, much
less a much heralded king.
Is the story of Scottish
warrior, William Wallace, of Braveheart fame, true? Truth be known, the
entirety of what is known about William Wallace comes from a poem written
about him nearly 200 years after his execution by English forces.
There are many more events
we believe without question to this day. And we do so despite the lack
of evidence verifying they truly happened, or that they happened as reported.
Again, understand that theses 3 historic events and many others that are
purported to be true are based on significantly less substantiating evidence
than that supporting the resurrection of Jesus.
What About Faith?
Like many other believers
in Jesus Christ, an estimated 6 billion-plus since the first to believe
at Pentecost in 33AD up to today's date in 2024, the Holy Spirit of God
that came to live in us testified with our spirits across all time that
Jesus, the Son of God, willingly died at the hands of His most ardent enemies,
rose from the dead three days later as prophecied hundreds of years before
and as foretold repeatedly by Jesus Himself in the days leading up to the
event, and met with no fewer than 500 people of all persuasions on many
occasions before ascending back home to heaven, where He now sits at the
right hand of Father God.
What is It Going to Take
for You to Believe?
I dare you to ask God to
open your hearts and minds to the truth. What do you have to lose? And
if He opens your eyes to the fact of the resurrection, a miracle that is
not naturally possible, you will have gained more than you deserve. Rising
from the dead can only be supernaturally accomplished...by God. That is
God's primary sign that He bestowed on an unbelieving generation. Ask and
you will receive. Seek and you will find. And knock and the door will be
opened. A miracle only He can perform. You can't make this stuff up. It
is so unbelievable that it has to be true. Think about that. Let God reveal
the greatest of His kingdom's mysteries that you might too become one of
His cherished residents.
Romans 10:9
1 Corinthians 15:12-21
¹one
historian's projected date for Christ's resurrection
²'aruchat
tzoharayim' is the Hebrew expression for 'lunch time'
³In
Matthew 28:11, Matthew writes that the Roman guard of Jesus' tomb reported
the next morning "what had taken place" at the tomb to the Jewish chief
priests, (not the Roman leaders they work for) but does not tell us at
all what they reported. All we know from Matthew's account is that after
hearing the guard's report, the chief priests concocted a counter-story
for the guard to tell others, which was not to include their own Roman
leaders, and paid them a "sufficient sum of money." The counter-story curiously
asserts that Jesus' disciples "came by night and stole" His body...while
the guard was asleep. In addition, they assured the guard that if word
did reach the ears of the Roman governor, we will cover for you so you
won't get into trouble. And Matthew reports that the guard did as the chief
priests told them.
Beyond that, we know nothing
more. In fact, the guards reporting anything to anyone is not mentioned
in the 3 remaining gospels. We can infer from the message of the counter-story
that the guard must have said something about the tomb being empty. We
can also infer that if they were willing to say that they were sleeping
on the job, which would have warranted an immediate execution, they money
they received must have been more than worth the risk. We can also infer
that the chief priests must have given the guards at least an idea of what
they would say to cover for them, and that they trusted them to pull it
off convincingly. The bottom line is they experienced something that spooked
them something fierce, and to admit what they actually witnessed
was not something that was an option for them to entertain. Had they gone
first to their leaders, they would already be dead. |
