Hope

The sun is shining and all seems well with the world when the sun is out, it gives us hope, it's just nice to sit in the sun and bask in the rays to be honest.
That has got me thinking about hope and the fact we have just celebrated the most hopeful event in all of history. Easter is all about Jesus being crucified and then rising back to life 3 days later. As a Christian I follow someone who is alive, that is one of the key differences all other worldviews follow people who are dead. The biggest black cloud that threatens to block out our sun is death, we can climb a mountain, run a marathon, get a promotion, have a family but we cannot beat death. However if Jesus really did then this gives us hope beyond hope.

One of my main objections to the Christian faith just a few years ago was the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Come on I said "his followers just said that to get a following", "they were hallucinating" "they were grieving and really wanted him to come back". Besides all those people back then were fairly primitive and they believed in miracles and resurrections we know now that these things simply don't happen.
I am going to break those down into three areas
Made up story
Hallucination
Primitive

Made up story - There are so many factors here, as always this blog will not do justice to all the evidence. When Jesus had died, the Roman authorities wanted to make sure that no one would take the body, armed guards were posted on the tomb. A large stone was in front, this could not have been removed without someone noticing. Both the Romans and the Jews at the time did not want this body to go anywhere. The first people that discovered the empty tomb where women, so what? In the culture women were second class citizens, there evidence was not permissible in a court, they were not taken seriously. Look, if you were going to make up a story you definitely wouldn't have used women as your initial eye witnesses. You would only put something like that in there if....it really happened. During the days that Jesus was dead his followers had literally deserted him, they had put all their hope in him only to find that he had died. They ran away and hid, we have accounts of them hiding in a room for fear of the people. They went back to their jobs the following week because they thought it was over. We then see as they begin to visually see Jesus this radical change in events, they begin to move out into the cities, other countries proclaiming what had happened. This was under huge danger to their lives, in fact many of them die for their beliefs. Now, you and I might die for something we sincerely believe but would you die for a lie? They claimed that they had seen Jesus alive, now either it was true or it was a lie, they died holding on to their statements. Now either these people died for a lie or they were telling the truth, I know which one I opt for.

This brings us on to an argument people often given - hallucination - maybe these people simply wanted Jesus back so much that they really thought they saw him. You hear of stories now where people have seen dead relatives maybe that is what happened. Again let’s look at the evidence, when Jesus came back people like doubting Thomas touched his side; he also ate with his disciples, separate sightings of him. But for me the crucial evidence is Jesus then appears to over 500 people, including the apostles, other followers, a large group who he talks to, his doubting family members, you can have one hallucination but a group cannot all see the same hallucination. We could go further with this, but seriously this is such a far stretched idea. Please drop me a line if you feel I haven't answered it.

Primitive - this is a commonly held theory that 2,000 years ago people were fairly backward, they didn't really understand the world, they thought it was flat for goodness sake; surely they had a view of the world that meant they expected Jesus to rise from the dead that's just how they saw things. This expectation gave rise to legend and things got out of hand and by the time we get on the scene who knows what really happened. - The first thing I would like to correct is that the world view of the day had any expectation on resurrection of the dead, the religions of the time never thought this likely. The jews believed there would be a resurrection at the end of time for everyone, but not in bodily form now that would be absurd. This was not something they expected, far from it. So much so that even Jesus' followers when they found the empty tomb thought someone had stolen the body rather than he was raised, even though Jesus had been telling them time and again that he would be raised! The people weren't primitive by any means; you only have to read the literature of the time. What would case this sudden rise of the Christian movement in a hugely dramatic way, just think for a moment how you would react if you saw him alive? You would probably pick your jaw up from the floor and then run and tell people, what happened, exactly that and this movement began that has seen billions and billions of people turn to Jesus, lives changed, I cannot explain it any other way. Do you know that serious critiques of the gospels even agree that Jesus appeared but they try to explain it away by suggesting that Jesus had twin brother, rather than come to the truth with humility. It really happened.
When a lawyer takes evidence, he takes the facts and they paint a picture of what happened. There are so many facts that the painting is almost painted for you, you can see the truth you just need to take that plunge....
Anyway it has been a long blog and I could write pages! If Jesus rose from the dead it really means that he is God, that he has conquered death. That what he said is true, that we need to turn away from our own way of doing things and turn to him. The Son is indeed shining and all will be right with the world, will you come and bask in his rays or will you stay in the dark?
Please drop me a line with your thoughts - georgeosborn@hotmail.com