For God’s Sake

Once while on a delivery together, Cliff told me that he did not believe that men had landed on the moon.  By this time, there had been six lunar landings, the last one occurring scarcely a year before. “How can you NOT believe it?” I asked. He replied, “None of us was there to see it happen. All we have is their word for it.” As incredulous as his disbelief seemed, he did have a point there. The only people present when the lunar module touched down on the moon was its two-man crew. “It was televised!” I countered. “That was filmed in a movie sound studio,” he answered calmly. Our discussion ended in uncomfortable silence.

On April 2, 1984, I came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. A pastor showed me from the Scriptures how Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins on the cross, and how God raised him from the dead on the third day. I believed it with no proof other than the Scripture report. Friends thought I’d lost my mind, especially concerning the resurrection. “How can you believe that?” they would protest, “You weren’t there. All you have is what the Bible says.” I remembered my discussion with Cliff.

Most of us today believe that NASA landed men on the moon. None of us was there, but we trust the reports. Far fewer people believe in Jesus’ resurrection even though we have centuries-old, eyewitness reports. The Apostle Paul, once hostile to Christianity, reported about the risen Christ, “he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” It was on that very occasion that Paul, the opponent, believed.

Some have suggested that the resurrection reports were faked to promote the Apostles’ own agendas. If so, the writers should have done a better job. The first eyewitnesses to the empty tomb and a living Jesus were women. A woman’s testimony in that day and cultural was considered worthless. If the writers had wanted people to believe, they should have written in more reliable witnesses, that is unless they were simply reporting what actually happened.

Then there is the matter of an empty tomb. The tomb was heavily guarded by professional soldiers so that Jesus’ disciples could not steal the body and claim he was raised from the dead. All their opponents had to do was produce the body and this resurrection business would be done. They could not.

I could go on, but space doesn’t permit it. As with any report of an historical event for which we were not present, be it a lunar landing or a miraculous resurrection, we must take it on faith. Jesus resurrected? I choose to believe.