The Touchstone Miracle

 

       Christmas is next week! I can't believe that. I've just begun Christmas shopping and it's almost too late to order things online and get them shipped in time. That means I may have to wade into the chaos of store shopping. I'm not looking forward to it. I'd rather wade into the chaos of Christian apologetics.       

       Apologetics is my passion.  Actually, discipleship and evangelism are my passions, but apologetics is foundational to both. I have chosen to focus my academic education on apologetics, and I have discovered that it means I will never stop being a student. What is apologetics? It comes from 1 Peter 3:15, "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect." The word "defense" in the Greek is apologia, and from it we get the word apologetics.  So, Christian apologetics is simply evaluating the biblical worldview and preparing to defend it when challenged. 

       It's a sort of jack-of-all-trades type of academic field and that can make it rather daunting (much like parking pretty much anywhere except my driveway this time of year).  Christian apologetics can take you into any number of topics.  One day you are faced with something such as philosophical questions like "Could we know right from wrong if God didn't exist?" or "Can we trust our senses to give us accurate information about reality?" Another situation may raise scientific questions like "How does the age of the earth, according to scientific discovery, compare to the book of Genesis?" You might find yourself discussing the irreducible complexity of flagellum bacteria in one discussion, and in the next debating the best methods to share the Good News of Jesus with people. It's a pretty complex field, full of possibilities and endless learning. God has equipped some brilliant people to root out the difficult answers, eloquently present the evidence, and make the case so compelling that it is rather easy to conclude that the biblical worldview of Christ as Lord is the only reasonable, rational thing to believe.

       But here's the reality of much of apologetics, and it's only daunting if we lose sight of this one thing. It's all just icing on the cake! The truth of what Jesus did for you doesn't need more defending. You don't need any more evidence than what you already have, if you've been told the whole story about Jesus. This wonderful field of study is merely pointing to the inevitable evidence of God, and it's really just more grace that we don't deserve.

Don't get me wrong, I've dedicated my educational endeavors to it, spent tens of thousands of dollars learning about it, and when normal people are watching TV I usually have my nose in another nerdy book. I do that prayerfully, passionately, and I have no doubt that is God's will for me. In fact, I've seen what the confidence of discovering how rock solid this Truth is. (I used a capital T because Jesus said, "I am the Truth.", in John 14:6. There's more to this Truth than truth, but that's for another article another day.) I've seen people radically go all in, take up their cross if you will, all from exploring the cause of the universe, the majesty of the cell, or the magnificence of the giraffe's circulatory system.  This apologetics is life-changing, powerful stuff! No one can tell me it's worthless, I've seen it in action!  

A timely Christmas apologetics blog post might touch on whether the miracle of the virgin birth really happened; Is there evidence for it? Or perhaps on how a friend and fellow student recently shared a historical astrology report from his native country of China that documented what was likely the star that guided the wise men to the baby Savior. These are fascinating topics, and they would sure fit the season. But, I've had something else on my heart, and it touches on all of the miracles at once, including these Christmas miracles.

I've come to realize that the touchstone of apologetics, discipleship, and evangelism, however, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  (The rest is just because when God fills a cup, it overflows because He's just that awesome!) In other words, the Christmas miracles are real, because Jesus is risen! Don't take my word for it that the resurrection of Jesus is all we really need.  Look at what Jesus said, "Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."" That was Matthew 12:38-39. Jesus had been ministering and working miracles for about three years at this point, and folks were beginning to treat Him like a circus act. They were taking the evidence for granted. Jesus' response was that all they needed for proof was that He would die and rise again on the third day. He had given them more than that already, but, according to His very own words, all they needed was the resurrection.

Also, look at the story he told as recorded in Luke 16:19-31. Here, Jesus tells the parable of "Lazarus and the rich man". It's interesting that Jesus names a character in this parable. It's the only time that ever happened. The story is that the rich man dies and goes to hell, while Lazarus, who's a poor man who suffered in life, dies and goes to heaven. The rich man begs Abraham to let him go warn his five brothers about hell. Abraham says they don't need to be told, they have the Word of God. The rich man says they need more than that, and Abraham replies, " If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." Remember all those miracles Jesus did? One of them was raising a man named Lazarus from the dead.  Now imagine you witnessed that miracle, heard this parable (with the peculiar naming of the character), heard Jesus say the only proof you need is His resurrection, and then witnessed His physical body after the resurrection. I'm starting to agree with Jesus that all we need is the resurrection!

But this raises a question for us today. Did the resurrection really happen? If it did, that pretty much seals the deal for the rest of the miracles. I mean if the guy can rise from the grave, He can probably walk on water, part an ocean, keep a man alive in the belly of a fish, talk from a burning bush, turn water into wine, and so on and so forth. Right? So if the resurrection is true, the rest of the claims of Christianity are true. Likewise, if it is false, then Christianity is hogwash. Paul even said that very thing in 1 Corinthians 15:14-17.

The resurrection sure seems like a pretty simple thing to falsify, if it's false. The Bible makes some rather bold claims about encounters with Jesus after the resurrection. In fact, there are twelve groups of people to whom Jesus is reported as having appeared, groups numbering from one person to 500. In 1 Corinthians 15:6, where the group of 500 is mentioned, it even says that "most of them are still alive." Now imagine that it appeared in today's newspaper that a prominent figure who recently died has been raised from the grave...and 500 people have seen the man alive!

Assuming the report of our prominent figure's resurrection is false, what do you think would follow? I'd imagine other news agencies would report how absurd the claims were, how none of the 500 people could be located, what motivated the false report, and so on. At best, the report would simply be ignored. Assuming it were true, I'd imagine we'd find multiple reports of the story, have journalist interviewing the witnesses, and subsequent follow-ups digging for more of the details. In other words, there would be evidence one way or the other, and how it was reported would reflect the evidence.

So, which way did it happen with the reports of Jesus' resurrection? It was anything but ignored! There were multiple reports attesting to the real, historical event of a resurrection! In fact, that's exactly what the four Gospels found in the Bible are. Luke's Gospel is even an example of a follow-up report by a non-eyewitness interviewing eyewitnesses and digging for more details. We don't find what we'd expect to find at all if the story were not true.

Let's not forget the fact that many of those eyewitnesses were so convinced that they went to their death for their belief. The exact method of torture and death the apostles faced is controversial, but not that they faced it. We can be certain only that Herod had James killed with a sword from Acts 12:2. That likely means he was beheaded. Now, I'm pretty sure I'd fess up to a fib before I'd have my head chopped off. Even if we assume that James was an exception to common sense, it would be odd for ten more apostles to face a similar fate without letting the cat out of the bag of a conspiracy to fool people into believing in a faked resurrection.  Those 500 witnesses? It's safe to say many of them fell victim to the Coliseum, where Christians were a favorite party favor for the lions and other wild animals that were collected for the spectacles. These Christians could have spared their lives be denying the resurrection. How many of them spared their lives with reports that the resurrection was faked? Zip. Zilch. Nada. Not one of them recanted their belief in the resurrected Jesus in the face of death!

  There's plenty more evidence for the resurrection. If you're interested in discovering more of it yourself, read any of the Gospels and check out books like The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, or  Cold Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace. In fact, my studies into apologetics and this overwhelming collection of evidence available even today has led me to the point where I have a new understanding of what we need to believe in Jesus. I have a new understanding of what Jesus meant when He referred to His resurrection as "the only sign". And I now know precisely what the Bible means when it says in Luke 16 that some won't believe "even if someone is raised from the dead."

So, this Christmas, as you celebrate the miracles that began the life of our Savior, you can have confidence in them because of the miracle on the other end of His life on earth. That's what He wants you to know!

The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reports in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences were the "gospel" or good news which the Christian brought: what we call the 'gospels,' the narratives of Our Lord's life and death, were composed later for the benefit of those who had already accepted the gospel. They were in no sense the basis of Christianity: they were written for those already converted. The miracles of the Resurrection, and the theology of that miracle, comes first: the biography comes later as a comment on it. Nothing could be more unhistorical than to pick out selected sayings of Christ from the gospels and to regard those as the datum and the rest of the New Testament as a construction upon it. The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection." (C.S. Lewis, Miracles. pgs. 143,144).

We can be confident in the miraculous birth of Jesus this Christmas because of the touchstone miracle of His resurrection. Jaroslav Pelikan, professor of Yale University said, "If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen, nothing else matters." The reports are in and the evidence is clear, Christ is risen and nothing else matters! Merry Christmas!