In our daily living, how do we carry out what St Paul tells us to do? Do whatever we are doing with all our heart? Our heart must come into whatever we are doing. Our heart must be in the center of what we are doing! How? How to put our heart into our work? There is always the danger that we may do whatever work we are doing just for the sake of the work. It is our work. No more. But if we do it for Christ we will do it more conscientiously and with our heart in it as well. We must work as though we are working for the Lord and not for people. We, as Christians, must put in that extra—heart—into what we are doing.

      Just by giving that warm smile we will be putting our heart into our work!  See how Mother Teresa tells us, “A smile must always be on our lips for any child to whom we offer help, for any to whom we give companionship or medicine. It would be very wrong to offer only our cures; we must offer to all our heart.” (A Gift for God, 52)

        Take another daily living example. How can we put our heart into our “Thank you” for the service that people give us? Give them not only the routine “Thank you” but also putting our heart into the “Thank you.” How? By treating the individual as a person and by looking into the person’s eyes, smiling warmly and showing kindness in our expression. This is what Mother Teresa advises us to do:

     “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness:

·        kindness in your face,

·        kindness in your eyes,

·        kindness in your smile,

·        kindness in your warm greeting.

In the slums we are the light of God’s kindness to the poor. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer and are lonely, give always a happy smile. Give them not only your care, but also your heart.” (A Gift for God, 52)

     When we meet people, how do we greet them? “Good morning” “Good day” “Good night” “How are you?” Nice to meet you” Do we greet them perfunctorily? Do we give an insincere smiling greeting? Is our greeting genuine?  Do our greetings come from our hearts that are warm and sincere?

It is wonderful to notice how Mother Teresa demonstrates, with insightful and practical gestures, her love and compassion to a person who hungers for bread or hungers for love. When asked by a journalist:

“Mother Teresa, how can you preach the Gospel to someone whose stomach is empty?”

“There are various ways of doing it. It can be done this way….” (Mother Teresa stands up, extends her hands, and draws them back quickly. It is the gesture of a person who gives charity in a hasty, impersonal way.) “Or this way….” (She holds her hands together like a cup and extends them with compassion and tenderness. It is the gesture of a person who give charity with compassion and love.) “There is a hunger for bread and a hunger for love. Some are naked because of alack of clothing and some are naked because of a lack of human dignity. Jesus said: ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was sick and you visited me. I was abandoned and you consoled me’.” (Teresa of Calcutta, 165)

     These are but simple matters in our daily living. They make life a little better and they are vitally important to our spiritual life. As it is an attitude of seeing the “stranger” as a fellow human being and treating him as person with courtesy, consideration and hospitality. It is in effect fulfilling Jesus saying, “inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me’ (Matthew 26:40 NKJV).

     However, we are aware that any insincerity or a bogus kindness will be spotted and should be avoided. How then to develop the genuine attitude? We need a complete change in our mindset. What this means is that we see everything we do as though we are doing it for the Lord Jesus Christ and to Jesus. How?

     We must constantly pray over the work we do. And if we constantly pray over the work, we know that the work is done together with Jesus and cared for by Jesus. We need to pray to Jesus to give us the enthusiasm, zest and passion to carry out the work that is set out for us. If we work together with Jesus we will do much better work. We will do our best. We will do the work more cheerfully. The work will not be tiresome or burdensome. We will be more assured of what we are doing. We will take the time to prepare more thoroughly and to do our very best as we pray that we do not spoil His work. And when we work with Jesus our work will be for Jesus. For Jesus to strengthen us with courage and determination to carry out the work wholeheartedly, we have to put ourselves under His influence, His prompting, His guidance and His leading through constant prayer. As Mother Teresa says:

     “Have I really learned to pray the work? Maybe I have never learned to pray the work because the whole time my mind is ‘work.’ Here are words that will help you: ‘With Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus.’” (Contemplative at the Heart of the World, 113)

     “We must join our prayer with work. We try to bring this across to our sisters by inviting them to make their work a prayer. How is it possible to change one’s work into a prayer? Work cannot be substituted for prayer. Nevertheless, we can learn to make work a prayer. How can we do this? By doing our work with Jesus and for Jesus. That is the way to make our work a prayer. It is possible that I may not be able to keep my attention fully on God while I work, but God doesn’t demand that I do so. Yet I can fully desire and intend that my work be done with Jesus and for Jesus. This is beautiful and that is what God wants. He wants our will and our desire to be for Him, for our family, for our children, for our brethren, and for the poor.” (A Life for God, 12)

     But, how do we translate doing our best into our working life? I see roughly two situations that are of major importance—one when we are the subordinates and the other when we are the managers or supervisors. When we are the subordinates we must learn to manage the supervisors and when we are the managers we must learn to manage all the resources at our disposal. How?

I.   Managing our Boss (immediate supervisor)

     Agenda —To obtain the best results for our company, our boss and ourselves. This is not for political maneuvering or for apple polishing. 

     Purpose—To make our boss trust us so that he gives us more elbow room to do our work in the way we do best.

     Procedure—To achieve that, we have to systematically work at the following Do’s and Don’ts.

 Do
(1) Look for ways to help him

a) Make him look good

b) What do I do that hampers him and to remedy it.

c) In what key areas does he need my support?

d) How can I ease his burden?

e) What is it that he finds difficult to do and how can I help?

a) His likes and his dislikes

b) His strengths and his weaknesses

c) His needs and his wants

d) His work habits–allow him to boast about his success or hobbies, even when we are pressed for time to finish our schedule

e) His time allocation—-respect his time

f) His priorities

g) His objectives and goals

(3) Cater to his communication preferences

a) If he is a listener, brief him and then follow up with a memo.

b) If he is a reader, put our proposals in a report and then discuss them with him.

c) Detailed or condensed form

d) Keep him informed

e) See him in the morning, afternoon or late evening

f) Break the ice by talking about his hobbies or sport

g) Ask him what he likes to do

(4) Use him as a resource

a) We are dumb not to consult him on important issues and major problems

b) We are learning and communicating when we ask him for help where we are unclear or uncertain of the methods of work that he wants.

c) Allow him to point out our mistakes and to guide us as a mentor

d) Touch base with him every now and then

(5) Support his success

a) Contribute to his achievements

b) See him as an ally

c) Make him as effective and as achieving as possible

d) Appreciate his pressures and goals

e) Focus to provide solutions for problems

(6) Build a cooperative relationship with him

a) Foster credibility with him by being reliable even in small matters

b) Have integrity—don’t shade the truth and play down issues

c) Cultivate good manners as they are the lubricating oil that smoothes over friction

d) Show proper respect for him and his position

e) Overrate him rather than undervalue him

f) Assume that he has the talent and accomplishments to rise to his current position

g) Allow him to talk incessantly about his successes even if our work piles up

h) Make him feel good—we invariably like the people who boost our self-esteem.

Don’t

a) Surprise him

b) Be at odds with his priorities and objectives

c) Assumed too much but clarify with him

d) Hide problems from him

e) Fit him into any preconceived mould

f) Ever run him down with people in the office

g) Catch him at a bad time

h) Be brash and confrontational in discussing issues with him

i) Be too proud to say that we do not know and ask for help from him

j) Concentrate too hard to impress—we will end up working too hard and too long

k) Lose our cool with him

    (You may like to read the Harvard Business Review article, “Managing Your Boss,” in my website http://www.geocities.com/lauho08 under the Heading “Work”)

II. Managing all our Resources

          When we are the manager, we need to constantly ask ourselves how to make our products or services better, cheaper and faster, without compromising safety and quality. We need to have a mind that constantly looks for alternative solutions. There is no such thing as “no solution,” only a more intensive search for answers. We use all our faculties to monitor and evaluate systematically how the scarce resources (10 MIT) that are under our care are utilised.

          So we channel our resources into areas that produce the best results:

   1) Use the eyes (observe) and the mind (discern) to assess

     a) The 5M of On-site Performance

            Machinery—Sufficient? Functioning? Breakdown?

            Material —Ordered? Arrived? Shortage?

            Manpower —Sufficient? Idle? Shiftwork?

            Mess    —Rubbish? Co-ordinated? Re-work?

            Mock-up —Bugs? Tested? Mass produced?

     b) The 5M of Management Performance

            Managers  —Experienced? Focussed? Key tasks?

            Method    —Queue? Sequence right? Bottleneck?

            Millstone —Accountability?  Strife?  Roadblock?

            Market    — Feedback? Wanted? Modified?

            Money     —Allocation? Cash-Flow? Unpaid?

     c)   Information —Available? Accurate? Honest?

     d)   Time        —Concentrated? Diverted? Busy work?

  2) Use the mouth to ask questions

              Any problem?

              Any comment?

              Any suggestion?

              What do you think?

              What is new?

   3) Use the ears to listen

              Listen to what is said

                 “   “    “   “  not said

                 “   “  the tone

                 “  “  the pitch

                 “  “   the hesitancies

                 “  between the lines

   4) Use our feelings to sense

              Get a feel for the place

              Sense the pace

                “     “  tempo

                “     “  bustle

                “     “  mood

   5) Use our intuition to affirm

              Trust our intuition

                “    “   gut feeling

     We use our 10 MIT skills systematically and follow through quickly to ensure effective actions are taken promptly.

     Yes, we could desire to do everything we do as though we are doing it for the Lord Jesus Christ. We can go the extra mile, making clients and staff feel appreciated and valued, walking in love despite nasty people, etc. We give our heart to our work and we do our best, yet we may be bypassed for promotion. Do we get bitter? Plot revenge? Imprisoned by frustration? An eye for an eye? Do we harbour resentment after all the best effort that we have put in? Quit? Do we accept the disappointment and pain as opportunities to grow as people and trust that Jesus will enable us to go through them patiently and bravely? How should we respond? That’s where constantly praying over the work comes into play. How?

     The joyful result of constantly praying over the work is that we know that we are working with Jesus and for Jesus. We work for His glory. We leave the results of our work to Jesus. It is natural to want to see the results of our work but we should leave the success or failure of what we do to Jesus. He is in charge and the timing and the results are His. In this way when the result doesn’t work out the way we expect it to be, we will not be discouraged; we will continue to do the work wholeheartedly. We will overcome our weariness and shoddiness in the face of not seeing any fruit in our effort. We will not be restless and try to change our work. We will not give up easily or be disillusioned when we consistently pray the work. As Mother Teresa advises:

      “Don’t give in to discouragement. No more must you do so when you try to settle a marriage crisis or convert a sinner and don’t succeed. If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers. Never bother about people’s opinions. Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus.” (Contemplative at the Heart of the World, 107)

         Whatever work we do, do our best. Do it wholeheartedly. Do it with passion. Zest. Enthusiasm. Constantly pray over the work so as to be conscious of working with Jesus and for Jesus. And when we leave the results to Jesus we will be less anxious and less pressurized. We will find there is peace in our heart. Funnily enough with this attitude we will also live our lives “more abundantly.” (John 10:10 NKJV)

All the passages below are taken from John Young with David Wilkinson’s book “The Case Against Christ” first published in 1986. This edition is 2006 by Hodder & Stoughton.

There exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in the verdict that the resurrection story is true.

              Lord Darling, former Lord Chief Justice of England

     A story is told about Talleyrand, a leading statesman during the French Revolution. He was approached by a dejected friend seeking advice. His friend had attempted to found a new religion. It was, he said, a considerable improvement on Christianity, but his best efforts had met with little success. What should he do?

     Talleyrand paused. He agreed that the difficulties were formidable; so great that he hardly knew what to advise. `Still,’ he mused `there is one plan which you might at least try. Why don’t you get yourself crucified, and then rise again on the third day?’

          * * *

     Christians believe that this is precisely what did happen 2,000 yeas ago. In this chapter we shall examine some of the evidence for the extraordinary claim. But before we do so, two preliminary comments.

1. Christianity stands or falls with this

     Resurrection is not simply one aspect of Christianity. We cannot remove that piece of the Christian jigsaw labelled `resurrection’, and leave anything which is recognisable as the Christian Faith. We destroy the entire picture. For Jesus himself, his cross, and his resurrection from the dead are the three foundation stones on which Christianity rests.

     People sometimes say, `I’m not bothered about questions like: did Jesus rise from the dead? We’ve got his marvellous teaching. Surely that’s what really counts.’ This ‘let’s-concentrate-on-his-teaching’ approach is attractive. But it misses the point. For without his resurrection, it is extremely unlikely that we would have his teaching—or anything else in the New Testament. As Archbishop Michael Ramsey put it: `No resurrection; no Christianity.’

     In the early church there was no preaching of Jesus except as risen Lord. Nor could there be. For without the apostles’ conviction that they had encountered Jesus alive again after his death, there would have been no preaching at all.

     There would have been deep mourning for a lost friend. There would have been great admiration for a dead hero. No doubt his profound teaching would have been remembered and cherished by his small, loyal circle of followers. But within a few generations he would have been forgotten.

     Of course, movements do grow and develop after the founder’s death; we have ample evidence of this. It happens when the founder’s followers are in a buoyant frame of mind—for everything depends on their `get-up-and-go’. After Jesus’ death, his disciples had just about enough get-up-and-go to restart their fishing business!

2. Assessing the evidence is like detective work

     No one claims to have witnessed the resurrection. There were people on the spot soon afterwards, but nobody claimed that they saw God raise him up. Sorting out what happened is rather like investigating a murder. But in reverse.

     When Miss Marple helps the police she has to work with a series of clues. A body is found. No one saw the murder take place, but certain other related facts come to light. The butler was the long-lost illegitimate son of the victim; a bloodstained candelabra was found nearby; a maid’s fingerprints were on the wallet… Miss Marple helps the detectives, and then the lawyers and a jury, discover the most likely explanation for these facts. The case is decided if the explanation for each of the facts, or clues, points in the same direction.

     It is the same with the resurrection of Jesus, except that the problem is reversed. We are dealing, not with a corpse, but with someone said to have come alive from the dead. No one saw what happened to the body. But certain other related facts came to light—facts which demand an explanation just as much as the candelabra and the fingerprints in the murder case.

     We shall examine twelve such facts, and try to find the most likely explanation for each of them.

First fact: Jesus died as a young man

     Very few people have founded a great movement, and made a really decisive impact on history. Each of them needed time in which to make their influence felt. Each of them—except Jesus. For example:

·         Confucius (The great Chinese teacher) Died in 479 BC, aged 72;

·         Gautama the Buddha (Founder of Buddhism) Died in 483 BC, aged 80;

·         Muhammad (Founder of Islam) Died in AD 632, aged 62;

·         Karl Marx (The great mind behind Communism) Died in 1883, aged 64.

     Now compare and contrast Jesus Christ. He died around AD 30, as a young man in his thirties. He spent only three years in the public, eye, and those were spent in a fairly remote place. When he died he left no writing, and only a few dispirited, demoralised followers.

     Yet the impact of Jesus on history has been at least as great as that of the great men listed above. We don’t set aside one day in the year to remember him by, as with most other great figures. We base our whole calendar on his life. Every time we write the date we pay an unconscious tribute to his birth. The essayist R W Emerson could say that the name of Jesus `is not so much written, as ploughed, into the history of the world’.

     Professor Hans Kung sums up like this:

None of the great founders of religions lived in so restricted an area. None lived for such a terribly short time. None died so young. And yet how great his influence has been … Numerically, Christianity is well ahead of all world religions.

     This is a fact that demands an explanation. How could this village carpenter-turned-preacher make such a colossal impact, given his short life?

     Leaders do continue to exert influence on the world after their death, in two ways: through their writings, and through their followers. Jesus left no writings. True, his short earthly life made a powerful impact on his disciples. But this was largely cancelled out by the shattering blow caused by his early death. So how did he exercise such a massive and growing influence? The New Testament answer is that Jesus really did die on the cross—but God raised him from the dead. So Jesus is alive and he continues to influence events in the world even today, by his Spirit.

     When we read of a satellite circling the earth, we know that it was not the explosion of a firework which put it there. A big fact requires a big explanation. The same is true here. The continuing influence of Jesus, the astonishing transformation in the disciples, and the beginning of the Christian movement that sprang from this, are `big’ facts. They require a sufficiently `big’ explanation. Resurrection is exactly the right size.

     The mathematical physicist John Polkinghorne reflects on the remarkable rise of the early church and concludes:

Something happened to bring it about. Whatever it was it must have been of a magnitude commensurate with the effect it produced. I believe that was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Second fact: Several people claimed that they saw the risen Lord

     One Easter Sunday, a minister ate a daffodil halfway through his sermon. If young Jason told his mum about this, she might well think that he was winding her up.

     It was an unusual event. We do not readily accept such a report on the evidence of a single witness. But if the 300 people in church that morning all claimed that they saw the same thing, what then? To disbelieve Jason Brown might be sensible scepticism. To disbelieve the 300 would be unreasonable doubt. (Warning to reader—eating daffodils will make you sick, as the vicar discovered later that Easter Sunday!)

     The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in the Greek town of Corinth, about twenty-five years after the death of Jesus. In this letter he gave a list of people who claimed that they had seen the Lord, very much alive, after his death on the cross.

     James was one. Peter was another. It would be unreasonable not to believe in their integrity, for their teaching and writing were of the highest moral calibre. Besides, they were prepared to suffer and die for their beliefs (see Fact 3). Then there was the group of five hundred. Paul reminded his readers that most of these were still alive when he wrote. Their testimony could easily be checked.

     We are right to view a report that someone has risen from the dead with deep suspicion. But if enough people claim to have seen him, and if other evidence points in the same direction, the situation changes. A continuing refusal to believe does not display a healthy suspicion about an unusual happening; it displays a refusal to face facts.

     In his book Jesus Christ: The Witness of History Professor Sir Norman Anderson recorded a striking example of this. He related a conversation with a professor of philosophy, who agreed that the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is strong. But he refused to accept the evidence because `it simply could not have happened’!

Third fact: The disciples suffered for their preaching

     The men who deserted Jesus to save their own skins went into hiding. Then, a few weeks later, they began preaching to large crowds in public spaces. They declared that God had raised Jesus from the dead. This was extremely dangerous. Yet they were the same men who had been crushed and shattered by his crucifixion. They were the same men who had met in secret. But they were very different same men!

     In place of bitter disappointment there was joyful conviction; in place of fear there was boldness; instead of hiding behind locked doors, they were out preaching to the crowds; instead of thinking gloomily that their leader was dead, they proclaimed that he had conquered death.

     In other words, they were transformed. The question is: What transformed them? They claimed that it was because God had raised Jesus from the dead. Were they right? Were they mistaken? Or were they guilty of the greatest fraud in history?

     An invention? They had a motive for lying—to rescue the good name of their beloved teacher. We can imagine them plotting: `Let’s steal the body, and say that God has raised him from the dead.’

     This neat solution founders on one fact. History teaches us that people will suffer for deeply held convictions. No one’s prepared to suffer for something they’ve cooked up. We tell lies to get out of trouble, not to get into it! The whip and the sword soon uncover inventions. Besides, liars don’t usually write sublime and challenging moral literature like the New Testament.

                   * * *

     The willing suffering of the disciples also rules out the `swoon’ theory. According to this, Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Despite terrible wounds, he recovered in the tomb, and escaped. The disciples either nursed him back to health, or tried to and failed.

     This theory bristles with problems. Roman soldiers knew when a man was dead; and the tomb was guarded. But if we allow for a moment that this might have happened, the events which follow simply don’t fit.

     Jesus would have cheated death; he would not have conquered it. No doubt the disciples would have been delighted. But they would have kept the whole thing very quiet. Publicity and preaching would have been fatal, for they would have resulted in a search. The authorities would not have made a second mistake.

     Besides, to preach that God had raised Jesus from the dead which is exactly what they did preach—would have been a lie. We are back where we started. The lash, the dungeon and the sword would soon have loosened their tongues. People will suffer and die for their convictions, but not for their inventions.

Fourth fact: Hallucinations need certain conditions

     One thing is certain. The first disciples passionately believed that Jesus had been raised from the grave and had appeared to them. Were they mistaken? Perhaps they saw a ghost, or suffered from hallucinations?

     Well, if it was a disembodied spirit, vision or a ghost, it spent a lot of time and energy trying to persuade them that it wasn’t! The risen Lord had extraordinary powers of appearance and disappearance. Nevertheless, the disciples were soon convinced that he had a real, physical body, albeit remarkably transformed. They ate with him and touched him—and they concluded that God had raised him from the dead.

                *  *  *

     Perhaps the disciples were suffering from hallucinations? At first sight this seems more likely. But when we compare the factors involved in hallucinations with the appearances recorded in the Gospels, they don’t fit either. For one thing, hallucinations happen to individuals. Several people in a group—under the influence of drugs, for example—might hallucinate together. But they will experience different hallucinations, for these arise from the subconscious mind, and every person’s subconscious is as individual as their fingerprints.

     If these appearances were not inventions or delusions, it is hard to escape the logical conclusion. As the theologian John Robinson put it:

HE came to them … Jesus was not a dead memory but a living presence, making new men of them.

Fifth fact: They preached resurrection, not resuscitation or survival

     Professor James Dunn underlines this point in The Evidence for Jesus. Throughout history, including Jewish history, extraordinary happenings have convinced some people about life after death. For example, ancient Jewish literature speaks of people seeing visions of their dead heroes—heroes like Abel and Jeremiah. But as James Dunn points out, `In no other case did the one(s) seeing the vision conclude, “This man has been raised from the dead.”‘

     Nothing in the thought-forms of the day led them to expect the resurrection appearances of Jesus to occur in the way described in the New Testament. Like so many other factors surrounding Jesus, these events were unique and unexpected. Invention of this particular story is highly improbable, because the disciples were not that clever. The conclusion was thrust upon them and very often they were reluctant to accept it.

Sixth fact: No one produced the body

     The Church began, not primarily by the spreading of ideas, but by the proclamation of a fact. Something has happened, said the apostles. Jesus, who died on the cross, is now alive.

     To disprove an idea you must argue. To disprove a fact, you must produce evidence. Those who wanted to discredit the apostles—and the Jewish and Roman leaders wanted to do that very much indeed—had only to produce one piece of evidence to make the disciples look very silly.

     All they had to do was to produce the body of Jesus. If they had done that we would never have heard of him, or of his followers. There would be no Christian Church.

     It is very significant that they could not do this. If the authorities had taken the body, or discovered it still in the tomb—because the disciples had lied, or had gone to the wrong grave—they would have produced the corpse. When Peter and the rest began preaching that God had raised Jesus, this would have silenced them instantly.

     Instead, the authorities imprisoned, threatened, and beat the disciples. Herod even had James beheaded. They circulated the report that the disciples had stolen the body. It’s absolutely certain that the Jewish and Roman leaders had no idea at all what had happened to

Jesus. Yet the stubborn fact remained: his body had gone.

Seventh fact: The tomb was not venerated

     The empty tomb is strongly supported by the fact that the grave of Jesus did not become a place of pilgrimage. Tomb veneration was common at the time of Jesus, and people would often meet for worship at the grave of a dead prophet, as they do today. In surprising contrast, the earliest Jewish Christians did no such thing. `No practice of tomb veneration, or even of meeting for worship at Jesus’ tomb is attested for the first Christians’, affirms Professor Dunn. Veneration of the empty tomb only began two or three hundred years later, and it persists today.

     We agree with Professor James Dunn’s conclusion when he writes, `The tomb was not venerated, it did not become a place of pilgrimage, because the tomb was empty!’

Eighth fact: The first witnesses were women

     In the law courts and public life of first-century Judaea, the testimony of women was given little weight. It was held that only the testimony of men could be trusted. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that in the accounts of the resurrection in the Gospels, the women are centre stage. They are the first at the empty tomb on the Sunday morning. They hear the message of Jesus’ resurrection from the angels. Mary is the first person to encounter the risen Christ—whom she mistakes for the gardener.

     This has the ring of authenticity. If the resurrection accounts were invented it would have been crazy to choose women as key witnesses. The Gospels record that the first witnesses were women, because they were!

Ninth fact: They called Jesus `Lord’

     The first disciples were Jews, devout monotheists who frequently recited the Shema: `The LORD our God, the LORD is one’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). Then they met Jesus. At no point did they abandon their belief in One God. It would have been unthinkable for them to become ‘bi-theists’ (believers in two Gods), yet their concept of God was greatly enlarged as a result of their contact with Jesus. So, while continuing to assert that God is One, they began to speak of God the Father and God the Son. Within a short period they had firmly placed Jesus, the man from Nazareth, on the Godward side of the line that divides humanity from divinity.

     When the early Christians called Jesus `Lord’, they were not politely addressing him as `Sir’. No! They were applying to Jesus the name used for God in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament). This belief was almost forced upon their unwilling minds; it was certainly not invented by them.

     It was also extremely dangerous. Given the culture in which they lived and the Jewish mindset, the notion of any man occupying this position was regarded as blasphemy by their contemporaries. And blasphemy was a very serious offence.

     How can this amazing shift in attitude be explained? How can we account for the fact that these Jewish men and women, some of whom knew Jesus of Nazareth personally, and all of whom knew that he was a man who sweated and wept, could nevertheless address him as `Lord’? It was not deep philosophical analysis which led them to this conclusion. It was reflection upon their puzzling and startling experiences. Above all, it was their conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead. For if Jesus was Lord over life and death, he was, quite simply… LORD.

Tenth fact: Modern psychology supports it

     By this we mean that modern knowledge about the way people behave under stress supports our case for the resurrection of Jesus.

John was ordained alongside a man who had been a prisoner-of-war under the Japanese as a very young man. He came to Christian faith as a result of reading the New Testament. He was a wing commander—an experienced leader of men—who had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

     From his days in the prisoner-of-war camp in World War II, he understood how people behave under stress. He knew that dispirited people aren’t creative people. He knew that people do not reassemble and organise themselves effectively, after the sort of shattering blow which Jesus’ disciples had been dealt at his crucifixion.

     A handful of frightened men would not suddenly preach boldly to the very people who had killed their leader, and so risk their own lives. People just do not behave like that—unless something tremendous happens to drive away the fear and disappointment.

     That wing commander was convinced that in the case of the disciples, the necessary `something’ must have happened. Jesus really must have appeared to them after rising from the dead. That discovery set in motion the process which was to revolutionise his life.

Eleventh fact: Christ’s power today

     One surprising feature of the reported resurrection appearances is that they were confined to a period of six weeks. After that they stopped abruptly. Yet the first disciples continued to speak and behave as though Jesus was with them—not physically, but by his Spirit.

     Even more remarkable is the fact that this conviction was shared by others—at first by hundreds, then thousands, then millions, then billions—who had never seen Jesus, before or after his crucifixion.

     The evidence is not confined to the past. Millions of modern men and women continue to experience a new power, and a continuing `presence’ in their lives. Although of differing backgrounds, cultures, ages and temperaments, they put it down to the same cause: the risen Lord is alive and at work in our world—and in our lives—today.

     The actor James Fox is an example of this. He has featured in many movies, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He was one of the `beautiful people’ of the swinging Sixties, caught up in a world of drugs, sex, fame and wealth.

     Yet he was confused, and frightened of losing control of his life. Fitfully he read the New Testament and attended church. On Christmas Day 1968, by a series of unlikely `coincidences’, he met an enthusiastic Christian over breakfast in a hotel. They talked without embarrassment about the love of God and the way of salvation. James Fox became a Christian—then he became a salesman, an estate agent, and a full-time Christian worker.

     After a ten-year break he picked up the threads of his acting career. He records all this in his book Comeback—described by Dirk Bogarde as `moving, and searingly honest’. To summarise: James Fox met the living risen Lord, who turned his life the right way up.

Twelfth fact: The evidence convinces some surprising people

     Two modern Jewish scholars have studied the evidence for the resurrection and—given their background—they have come to a remarkable conclusion. In Jesus the Jew, Professor Geza Vermr, writes:

When every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be … that the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not a body, but an empty tomb.

     In 1985 an Orthodox Jewish scholar, Professor Pinchas Lapide, wrote a book entitled The Resurrection of Jesus. He surveyed the evidence and concluded:

I accept the resurrection of Jesus not as an invention of the community of disciples, but as a historical event.

Drawing the threads together

     More than once in this book we have conceded that Christianity isn’t a `tidy’ religion. It is coherent and (in our view) it has the `ring of truth’. But it presents us with problems and loose ends. So we are suspicious when the package presented for our inspection is too neat. However, we are convinced that there are few significant loose ends as far as the resurrection of Jesus is concerned, apart from our own inability or unwillingness to believe such a stupendous event.

     Leslie Weatherhead likened our examination of the evidence to a journey. When all the signposts point to a particular village, then we are foolish to deny that the village exists just because we haven’t been there. If this particular village does exist—if God really did raise Jesus from the dead—then our own life and death begin to take on a totally new significance.

     Jesus has defeated death. He is the `first fruits’ of a great harvest. We are that harvest. He has thrown wide open the gates of glory. Heaven awaits. Our present life is the shadow; life in the world to come is the substance (1 John 3:1-3).

     As Bishop Tom Wright puts it:

With the resurrection itself, a shock wave has gone through the entire cosmos: the new creation has been born, and must now be implemented. [172-185]

CONCLUDING QUOTATIONS

As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidence for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling … as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate.

                   Sir Edward Clarke, lawyer

  The evidence for the resurrection is astonishingly good.

                   Bishop and theologian Tom Wright

  We do not pass away; the world passes away from us …

          Edvard Munch, Norwegian artist (who painted `The Scream’)

All the passages below are taken from Lee Strobel’s book, “God’s Outrageous Claims,” which was published in 1997 by Zondervan.

It was a bright and beautiful August day in 1990 when Tobin McAuley, his best friend, and their girlfriends rented a catamaran to go sailing off the coast of Mexico. Nearly two miles off shore, Tobin’s buddy and the girls jumped into the warm water for a leisurely swim.

They were laughing and splashing—until suddenly Tobin’s friend began shouting for help. Cramps had gripped his legs. Quickly Tobin maneuvered the catamaran as close as he could to the swimmers. The girls scrambled on board. Tobin glanced around the boat for a life jacket, but there weren’t any, so he dove into the water to save his friend.

The problem was that the girls didn’t know how to sail. Frantically they tried to keep the catamaran near the guys, but the current pulled the craft away faster than Tobin and his friend could swim toward it. Pretty soon the boat had drifted out of sight—and twenty-nine-year-old Tobin and his thirty-year-old friend were left behind to drown.¹

When soldiers march off to war, they accept the risk that they may never come back. When people contract a serious disease, they understand they may not survive. But when vacationers go out on a sailing jaunt, they don’t anticipate that these will be their last moments in the world.

And yet through the years I’ve seen time after time how death often comes calling on days that start out bright and beautiful.

DEATH STALKS THE UNSUSPECTING

On a mild autumn afternoon when I was in fifth grade, my friend Bart and I were playing on the monkey bars after school. When it was time to go home, I headed south toward my house, and Bart and his little brother rode their bicycles west toward theirs.

As they approached a busy highway, Bart’s foot slipped off the pedal. He was unable to brake, and before he could regain control of his bike, it rolled directly into the path of an oncoming truck. As his helpless brother held him in his arms, Bart’s lungs filled with blood and he died.

It was a sunny spring day in 1979 when my dad was driving down the highway on his way to the commuter train. Without warning he was stricken with a massive heart attack and was dead before the car came to a halt at the side of the road.

In 1982 my friend Frank got up in the middle of the night because he was feeling queasy. Since he was only in his mid-thirties, he didn’t think this was anything more than indigestion. But he fell over dead, leaving behind a widow, a six-year-old son, and a four-year-old daughter.

As a journalist, I’ve seen hundreds of instances in which people embarked on a day that started routinely but ended in tragedy. They were victims of drunk drivers, muggers, drive-by shooters, carjackers, auto accidents, household mishaps, fires, medical anomalies, or airplane crashes. Each year six thousand people are killed just crossing the street!

I’m not trying to be unduly alarming. However, some people look at the national average life span and behave as though it’s guaranteed to them. It’s not.

There’s an old saying that only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. But while you can fudge on your taxes, ultimately none of us cheats death. It is ugly, unnatural, and morbidly efficient: one out of one dies. In fact, someone cynically said that life is merely a sexually transmitted disease with one-hundred-percent mortality!

And people fear the end. One third of Americans are so afraid of death that they are emotionally unable even to ponder their own demise. They fear the pain of death, the unknown, being separated from their loved ones, and the deterioration of their body. They just can’t face it.

UNPLUGGING THE REFRIGERATOR

Yet increasingly other people seem fascinated by the topic. Popular movies like Ghost and Defending Your Life explored death and what might come afterward. Not long ago three of the top ten best-selling books dealt with these subjects. Over three hundred and fifty thousand people bought the book How We Die, in which a physician gave graphic details of what it’s like to succumb to various diseases. Books on near-death experiences are proliferating.

Why all this interest? The most likely reason is that the leading edge of the baby boom generation turned fifty years old in 1996, and suddenly the perils of old age aren’t so remote anymore. Their parents are dying, and baby boomers themselves are reaching an era in which heart attacks and cancer are starting to take their toll among people they know. Now the odds of dying aren’t just an abstract mathematical long-shot but are an ever growing realistic possibility.

So more and more people are asking the same question that Job posed thousands of years ago: “If a man dies, will he live again?”² After all, what could be more fundamentally important than that?

Even wisecracking Murphy Brown has been asking that question. In a memorable episode, the fictional television reporter became concerned that her son, Avery, was someday going to ask what happens after a person dies, and she wanted to be ready with a response.

She thought back to what her father had told her when she asked that question as a child: “If you pull the plug on a refrigerator, does it keep running?” he said simply. That brought more confusion than clarity “Between the ages of five and seven,” Murphy mused, “I thought that when you died, the Goodwill truck hauled you away.”

So Murphy went to her friends for their ideas about death—and they didn’t turn out to be much help, either

THE QUEST OF MURPHY BROWN

Murphy’s colleague Frank Fontana admitted that he changes his opinion about the afterlife based on whether he’s currently dating a Hindu, Buddhist, or Rostafarian. Murphy’s producer, Miles Silverberg, told her, “Look, I’m Jewish, and we don’t talk much about heaven and hell. We focus on the here and now. We’re a lot like the Unitarians that way, except they don’t have gefilte fish.”

Murphy thought she might get some solid answers from anchorman Jim Dial, a devout church-attendee. But when she asked what participating in Sunday services provided him in coping with life and death, Jim mustered up enough honesty to reply; “Nothing. There, I said it.” He said he hopes that by immersing himself in the trappings of religion, someday he might develop a real faith that will make a difference for him.

And Corkie Sherwood, the ditzy, born-again Christian reporter, was only able to give Murphy some sugary platitudes about heaven before inviting her to a church potluck dinner where, if she was lucky; she might meet an eligible guy or win a new car.

Nobody was able to provide much guidance for Murphy Brown—until she talked with Eldon, her housepainter and confidant. “I do believe in life after death,” he said, “but not in the way you may think. I believe you live on in the things you create. For me, that’s my art. That’s my immortality. Maybe you’ve got something like that, too.”

Incredibly, that satisfied Murphy Brown! She thanked Eldon for his insight and—amazingly—walked away with newfound confidence. But would that satisfy you?

Sure, it’s nice to leave behind something that will make the world a little better than before you came onto the scene. But if that’s all there is—if we’re otherwise doomed to eternal extinction, like an unplugged refrigerator—then I’ll tell you what that’s not very satisfying to me!

That’s why one of my favorite quotations from Jesus comes from when he was talking with Martha about the death of Lazarus, who was her brother and Jesus’ good friend. Declared Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”³

In effect, Jesus was making this astonishing claim: “There is life after death. It’s not fantasy, it’s not make-believe, and it’s not wishful thinking. In fact, I’ll prove it to you by bringing Lazarus back to life after his four days in a tomb. And later I’ll establish it conclusively by overcoming the grave myself.”

For Christians who sometimes secretly wonder whether the idea of heaven is too fanciful or fantastic and for spiritual skeptics who suspect it’s probably the product of fertile imaginations rather than concrete reality; this unambiguous proclamation by Jesus is, without a doubt, one of his most outrageous.

But is it true? And if it is, how can we know?

THE RELEVANCE OF THE RESURRECTION

Gary Habermas, a bearded, hockey-loving scholar who looks more like a nightclub bouncer than a university professor, is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Resurrection. He received his doctorate on the topic from Michigan State University and has authored several persuasive books marshaling the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. In 1985 he devastated the arguments of renowned atheist Antony Flew in a major debate on whether the Resurrection is an actual event of history. Of the five independent philosophers who served as judges, four voted that Habermas had won; the remaining judge was undecided.

I got to know Gary several years ago when Willow Creek invited him to speak about the Resurrection in a program attended by more than five thousand people, many of them spiritual seekers. During our time together my curiosity prompted me to ask him a question.

“You’ve devoted so much time and effort to researching the Resurrection and defending it as being true,” I said. “What motivates you? Why is this so important to you?”

“It’s very simple,” he replied. “You see, every single shred of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is also evidence for my eventual resurrection.”

When it’s put that way, all of us have a personal stake in the issue, including Christians who long for additional assurance that their faith is well placed, and the real-life Murphy Browns of the world who aren’t sure where they stand spiritually.

Of course, our everyday experience tells us that pigs don’t talk, (regardless of the movie Babe), Santa Claus doesn’t slide down chimneys (despite Tim Allen’s Christmas film), and dead people don’t spring back to life.

But the Bible makes the outlandish assertion that Jesus did return from the dead. If this is false, “your faith is futile,” said the apostle Paul.⁴ But if it’s true, we can have hope that as Christ’s followers, we also will someday conquer death ourselves and spend eternity with him.

For us, heaven hinges on the reality of the Resurrection; that’s how central it is to the Christian faith. J. I. Packer said that when Christians are asked to provide evidence that their beliefs are grounded in truth, they invariably point to the Resurrection:

The Easter event, so they affirm, demonstrated Jesus’ deity; validated his teaching, attested the completion of his work of atonement for sin; confirms his present cosmic dominion and his coming reappearance as Judge; assures us that his personal pardon, presence, and power in people’s lives today is fact; and guarantees each believer’s own re-embodiment by Resurrection in the world to come.⁵

With so much riding on the Resurrection, how reliable is the evidence that it really did occur? How much confidence can we have in it, really? I’m going to address that question with a query of my own.

WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE OF HISTORY

Who would you guess is the most successful lawyer in the world? Johnny Cochran? F. Lee Bailey? The attorney who filed the lawsuit against McDonald’s for that famous spilled cup of scalding coffee?

There is an authoritative source to settle this sort of question, The Guinness Book World Records, and it says that Sir Lionel Luckhoo is by far the most accomplished lawyer on the planet. In an absolutely amazing feat that nobody has come close to repeating, this real-life Perry Mason won 245 murder acquittals in a row, either before a jury or on appeal.⁶

What uncanny skills would be necessary for a lawyer to soar to that unprecedented level of courtroom achievement? Certainly he must be smart, he must be savvy, he must be extremely analytical so he can dissect airtight cases, and he must have world-class mastery of what constitutes reliable and persuasive evidence. All of that describes Luckhoo, who was knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth and who also served as a distinguished diplomat and justice.

Given those qualifications wouldn’t it be interesting to get Luckhoo’s razor-sharp analysis of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? Fortunately, we have his opinion, because he took the time to apply his daunting legal expertise to thoroughly studying the matter.

Here is the conclusion he ultimately reached: “I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”⁷

Thoroughly convinced that Jesus rose from the dead in an irrefutable demonstration of his deity, Luckhoo did the most logical thing he could do: he reached out to receive Christ’s forgiveness and leadership of his life. “My life took a 180-degree change,” he said later “I found real peace and happiness and joy and righteousness and holiness.” ⁸

I appreciate Luckhoo’s story, because I used to consider the Resurrection to be a laughable fairy tale. After all, Yale Law School had trained me to be coldly rational, and my years of sniffing for news at the Chicago Tribune had only toughened my naturally cynical personality:

But intrigued by changes in my wife after she became a Christian, I spent nearly two years systematically using my journalistic and legal experience to study the evidence for the Resurrection and the credibility of Jesus’ claims to being God. Like Luckhoo, I emerged totally convinced and gave my life to Christ—and now, like Habermas, I rest in the security of knowing that Christ’s resurrection is a glorious precursor of my own.

So to heighten your own confidence, I’m going to summarize some of the evidence that I found particularly persuasive, beginning with a description of how Jesus died.

DID JESUS REALLY DIE ON THE CROSS?

It’s called the “swoon theory”—the idea that Jesus fainted on the cross or took a drug that made him only appear to die, and then the cool damp air of the tomb revived him and he emerged alive. Consequently, there was no miraculous Resurrection, because Jesus hadn’t actually perished.

Although there are no reputable scholars who currently hold this position, it was the topic of a popular book several years ago and is still frequently raised by skeptics. Frankly, I was curious about it myself when I began to sift through the possibilities, but it didn’t take long for me to see the fallacy of this position.

After Jesus’ trial, in which he was declared guilty of blasphemy for claiming to be God, the eyewitness John says, “Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.”⁹ Most people skim over this, but a physician named Dr C. Truman Davis actually analyzed the practice of Roman beatings during the first century. His conclusion was that Jesus had been mercilessly whipped to the very edge of death.

Jesus was tied to a post and beaten at least thirty-nine times—and probably more—with a whip that had jagged bones and balls of lead woven into it. Again and again the whip was brought down with full force on his bare shoulders, back, and legs. Davis said,

At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. The small balls of lead first produce large, deep bruises which are broken open by subsequent blows. Finally, the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons, and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue.¹⁰

One witness to a Roman flogging gave this description: “The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles and tendons and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”¹¹ Some victims died even before making it to the cross. Undoubtedly, Jesus was in serious to critical condition before his crucifixion began. It’s no wonder that history tells us he was unable to carry his own cross.

CHRIST”S SUFFERING FOR US

Later, five-to seven-inch spikes were driven through Jesus’ wrists. Dr. Alex Metherell, another physician who has extensively studied the crucifixion, told me that this would generate an agonizing pain akin to squeezing your funny bone with a pair of pliers. So brutal was death by crucifixion that a new word was coined to describe it—excruciating, which is Latin for “out of the cross.”

After his wrists and feet were nailed securely, Jesus was hoisted into the air to hang. Dr. Metherell said that death from crucifixion is basically a slow death by suffocation.

Because of the stress on his muscles, Jesus could inhale but couldn’t exhale unless he pushed up with his feet to relieve some of the pressure on his chest. Of course, that was tremendously painful, because his bloodied back was scraping against the coarse wooden cross and because of the spikes through his feet. After hours of struggling to push up and breathe, exhaustion sets in.

If the Roman executioners wanted to hasten death, they used a mallet to shatter the victim’s shin bones so he couldn’t push up anymore. The victim would then hang limp while his lungs would slowly fill with carbon dioxide and he would asphyxiate. That’s what the executioners did to the criminals being crucified on either side of Jesus.

But when they came to him, they saw he was already dead. To confirm that, a soldier thrust a spear between his ribs, puncturing the sac around his heart and the heart itself, causing a clear fluid and blood to drain out. After that Roman experts confirmed he was dead.

Let’s be unambiguous about this: nobody survived the torment of the cross, and that includes Jesus. “Clearly, the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted,” concluded an authoritative article in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association. “Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.”¹²

In fact, even if Jesus wanted to go against everything he taught by intentionally deceiving people, even if he had survived the cross, even if he managed to escape from his cocoon of linen wrappings soaked with seventy-five pounds of spices, even if he could roll away the huge boulder from the mouth of his tomb—a rock so large that one ancient account said twenty men couldn’t budge it—and even if he could get past the elite Roman guards, think of the condition he would have been in when he appeared to his disciples!

He wouldn’t have inspired them with boldness and gotten them excited about receiving that kind of Resurrection body someday. He wouldn’t have prompted them to triumphantly declare his return and launch a worldwide movement on his behalf. They would have been horrified. They would have been sickened by his bloody and broken condition. They would have pitied him and gotten him a doctor.

No, the swoon theory simply doesn’t make sense. There’s no doubt about it. Jesus died on Good Friday. But thank God, as Tony Campolo likes say, Sunday was a-comin’! And there are five categories of evidence that point affirmatively to the Resurrection as being an actual event of history that occurred on that day. Building on a memory device that Habermas taught me, each one begins with the letter E.

1. EARLY ACCOUNT: THE RELIABLE TESTIMONY OF HISTORY

I used to believe that the historical documents that comprise the New Testament and describe the Resurrection were irreparably flawed because they had been written so long—perhaps one hundred years—after the events. As a professor told me in college, legend and wishful thinking developed during this interim period and hopelessly distorted the record of who Jesus was and what he did.

But I found that many scholars are concluding there never was such a big gap between the life of Jesus and the belief that he’s the resurrected Son of God. The key to this is to establish an accurate date for when the book of Acts was written, since it records the spread of the early church, and then to work backward to figure out when the Resurrection accounts were recorded.

Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30 or 33. In his book Scaling the Secular City, scholar J. P. Moreland cites half a dozen compelling reasons to conclude that the book of Acts was written before the early 60s A.D.

For instance, the three main figures in Acts—Peter, Paul, and James—were all put to death between A.D. 61 and 65, but there’s no mention of that in Acts, which gives many other details of their lives. And Acts doesn’t discuss Emperor Nero’s persecution of the church in the mid-60s or the war between the Jews and Romans, which broke out in A.D. 66. Surly all of this would have been included in Acts if it had been written after these events, so it must have been written before them.¹³

Experts concur that Acts was authored by the historian Luke, and Acts explicitly states that it’s the second of a two-part work. The first part is the gospel of Luke—which affirms Jesus was the resurrected Son of God—and so we know that it was written earlier than Acts.

And most historians agree that Mark’s gospel—also testifying that Jesus is the resurrected Son of God—was written before Luke, because Luke apparently incorporated some of Mark’s material into his own. Consequently, Mark’s account is even closer to the events of Jesus’ life. In fact, there’s evidence that a key source that Mark included when writing about the empty tomb can be dated no later than A.D. 37.¹⁴

Now the gap has been narrowed so much that there’s nowhere near enough time for legend to have corrupted the historical record. Oxford University’s renowned scholar of ancient Roman and Greek history, A. N. Sherwin-White, concluded that even the passage of two generations wouldn’t be enough time for legend to wipe out a solid core of historical facts.¹⁵

What’s more, there’s a creed of the early church that the apostle Paul includes in 1 Corinthians and that confirms Jesus was put to death for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day, as was predicted in Scripture. Based on a variety of factors, some scholars date this creed as early as twenty-four to thirty-six months after the crucifixion—and the eyewitness accounts that underlie it go right back to the cross itself.¹⁶ In historical terms, this is like a hot news flash!

When Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians that the resurrected Jesus appeared to five hundred people at once, he specifically stated that many of them were still alive at the time he was writing.¹⁷ In effect, he was saying, “Hey, this happened so recently that these witnesses are still around—ask them yourself if you don’t believe me, and they’ll tell you it’s true!”

That’s how assured he was, just as we can have confidence in the reliability of the biblical accounts of the Resurrection.

In fact, after he examined all of the relevant historical evidence, scholar William Lane Craig came to this conclusion: “Within the first two years after [Jesus’] death. . . significant numbers of Jesus’ followers seem to have formulated a doctrine of the atonement, were convinced that he had been raised from the dead in bodily form, associated Jesus with God, and believed they found support for all these convictions in the Old Testament.”¹⁸

2. EMPTY TOMB: IT’S UNANIMOUS—THE BODY’S MISSING

During his trial, Jesus’ chief accuser was Caiaphas, who, history tells us, served as high priest from AD. 18 to 37. It was Caiaphas who accused Jesus of blasphemy for claiming to be God and then handed him over to Pilate to be executed.

Just a few years ago archaeologists were digging in Jerusalem, when they uncovered the burial grounds of Caiaphas and his family. But although his accuser’s grave has been found, nobody to this day has ever uncovered the body of Jesus himself.¹⁹

Jesus was laid to rest in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Jewish council, and the vault was sealed and placed under heavy guard. However, it was discovered empty on Easter morning by—and this is very significant—several women.

The fact that the biblical record says women discovered the tomb empty lends strong credibility to these accounts. The reason: women had low status in Jewish society and didn’t even legally qualify to be witnesses. So if the disciples were manufacturing or embellishing this story, undoubtedly they would have claimed that men had discovered the empty tomb, because their testimony would have been considered much more credible. Recording the then-embarrassing fact that women first saw the tomb empty is just one more indication that the biblical writers were committed to accurately recording what had actually happened.

But as Habermas has pointed out, the most powerful evidence concerning the empty tomb is that nobody ever claimed it was anything but empty. Even Jesus’ opponents admitted it was vacant on Easter. They tried to bribe the guards to say the disciples stole the body while they were asleep, which doesn’t make sense because Jesus’ followers lacked both motive and opportunity. Besides, how would the guards have known it was the disciples who took the body if they had been sleeping?

But the point is that when the disciples declared the tomb was empty, Jesus’ opponents didn’t respond by saying, “Oh no, it’s not” or “You’ve got the wrong tomb.” Instead, they admitted the grave was vacant.

The question is how it got empty. When I was first trying to solve this mystery as a skeptic, I went through the list of suspects but found that all of them lacked motivation. For instance, the Romans wouldn’t have taken the body; they wanted Jesus dead. The Jewish leaders wouldn’t have taken the body; they wanted him to stay dead. Either of them would have loved to have paraded Jesus’ lifeless body down Main Street of Jerusalem, because that would have instantly killed the growing Christian movement that they expended so much energy trying to destroy.

As for the disciples, besides the huge risks and difficulties that would have been involved in trying to steal the body, they would have had nothing to gain and everything to lose by such deception. Why would they have wanted to live a life of deprivation and suffering and then be tortured to death for what they knew to be a lie? If this had been a charade they had concocted, certainly one of them would have broken ranks under torture and told the truth.

Charles Colson can affirm that. As special counsel to President Richard Nixon during the Watergate debacle, he personally saw how conspiracies fall apart under pressure.

Is it really likely that a deliberate cover-up, a plot to perpetrate a lie about the Resurrection, could have survived the violent persecution of the apostles, the scrutiny of early church councils, the horrendous purge of the first-century believers who were cast by the thousands to the lions for refusing to renounce the lordship of Christ?… Take it from one who was inside the Watergate web looking out, who saw firsthand how vulnerable a cover-up is: Nothing less than a witness as awesome as the resurrected Christ could have caused those men to maintain to their dying whispers that Jesus is alive and Lord.^2O

OK, so those theories didn’t work. Then I thought, “Maybe the women went to the wrong burial place—after all, the hills outside Jerusalem were pocked with tombs. Maybe they lost their way in the darkness.” But that didn’t withstand scrutiny, either.

Not only did Mary Magdalene and the other women find the tomb empty but Peter and John came and checked it out for themselves. What are the odds they all would have made the same mistake? And they certainly would have made sure it was the right tomb before they risked their lives proclaiming Jesus had risen. Besides, their friend Joseph of Arimathea certainly knew where his own tomb was located. And if somehow they had all come down with collective amnesia, wouldn’t the Roman or Jewish authorities have gladly pointed out the real tomb to show that Jesus was still in it?

The testimony of history is unanimous: the tomb of Jesus was empty on Easter Sunday.

3. EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY: SEEING IS BELIEVING

Not only was Jesus’ tomb empty, but over a period of forty days he appeared alive a dozen different times to more than 515 individuals—to men and women, to believers and doubters, to tough-minded people and tenderhearted souls, to groups, to individuals, sometimes indoors and sometimes outdoors in broad daylight.

He talked with people, he ate with them, he even invited one skeptic to put his finger into the nail holes in his hands and to put his hand into the spear wound in his side, to verify that it was really him. This experience was so life-changing that the disciple Thomas ended up proclaiming to his violent death in south India that Jesus had in fact been resurrected.

I’ve covered scores of criminal trials as a legal affairs journalist, and I’ve never seen one with anywhere near 515 eyewitnesses. To put this into perspective, if you were to call each one of them to the stand to be questioned and cross-examined for just fifteen minutes each, and you went around the clock without a break, it would take you from breakfast on Monday until dinner on Friday to hear them all. After listening to nearly 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony, who could possibly walk away unconvinced?

Of course, as a skeptic, I tried to poke holes in their stories. For instance, could these appearances have been hallucinations? Dr Gary Collins—president of a national association of psychologists, a university professor of psychology for twenty years, and the author of more than forty books on psychology-related subjects—says this just isn’t possible.

Hallucinations, he said, are like dreams—they’re individual events that can’t be shared between people. One expert said that five hundred people sharing the same hallucination would be a bigger miracle than the Resurrection itself!

But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. If these weren’t hallucinations, perhaps they were an example of what psychologists call “group think” —a kind of wishful thinking in which people in a group subtly encourage one another, through the power of suggestion, to see something that’s not there.

But Collins said this wouldn’t be possible either because the circumstances were completely wrong. The disciples weren’t anticipating a Resurrection, which would have been totally alien to their Jewish beliefs, so they weren’t primed for this sort of “group think” to occur. In addition, Jesus ate with them, talked back and forth with them, and appeared numerous times before all kinds of people in different emotional states—all of which runs contrary to the “group think” theory

Besides, what about the empty tomb? If the eyewitnesses had merely talked themselves into imagining a vision of Jesus, his body would still have been in the tomb—and surely the Romans would have produced it.

One thing is certain, said Craig: “On separate occasions different groups and individuals had experiences of seeing Jesus alive from the dead. This conclusion is virtually indisputable.”²¹

4. EMERGENCE OF THE CHURCH: FILLING A HOLE IN HISTORY

Suppose that during the politically conservative days of the Reagan administration, you left the country and lost contact with the United States for twenty years. When you returned, you learned from a history book that a radical Marxist had been elected president after Reagan’s last term in office. A major question would leap into your mind: “What cataclysmic event precipitated such a major social shift?”

Moreland uses this illustration as an analogy for what happened in the first century when the Christian church was started by Jewish converts who abandoned or significantly modified several major tenets of Jewish tradition. This monumental change, he said, is even more dramatic than the Reagan scenario.

It would have taken something as dramatic as the Resurrection to prompt first-century Jews to switch from Saturday to Sunday worship, to abandon both the system of sacrificing animals for forgiveness of sins and adhering to the laws of Moses as a way to maintain right standing with God, and to embrace the concept of the Trinity. In doing this, those who started the church risked becoming social outcasts and, according to Jewish theology having their souls damned to hell.

“How could such a thing ever take place?” Moreland asks. “The Resurrection offers the only rational explanation.”²²

C. F. D. Moule, a New Testament scholar at Cambridge University put it this way: “If the coming into existence of the [church], a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with?”²³

The early church was fueled by the sincerity and enthusiasm of the disciples, who had shrunk back with cowardice before Easter but who after Easter boldly proclaimed to their death that Jesus had conquered the grave.

At first I wasn’t persuaded by the fact that they were willing to die for their beliefs. Certainly, lots of people throughout history have sacrificed themselves for their faith. As I’m writing this, for example, television news is bristling with a report that a Muslim terrorist has blown himself up and killed several people in a Tel Aviv shopping area. Why would he do that? Because in part he honestly believed that as a result he would go immediately to paradise to be with his creator.

But the disciples were in a completely different situation. They were in the unique position of knowing firsthand, for a fact, whether Jesus had really risen from the dead. They encountered him. They talked and ate with him. They declared it was true—he was resurrected. And because it was true, they were willing to die for it.

Do you see the difference? Unlike the terrorist who only had his faith, the disciples were able to know for sure whether their claim was true. Do you think they would have willingly let themselves be tortured to death for a lie? Nobody would do that. They were willing to die because they knew the Resurrection was a reality.

5. EXTRA BIBLICAL EVIDENCE: CONFIRMATION FROM OUTSIDE THE BIBLE

While there are plenty of reasons to believe that the New Testament records about the death and resurrection of Jesus are reliable, there are other ancient historical sources that provide additional confirmation.

Habermas, who is a leading authority on these so-called extra biblical records, has compiled twenty-two ancient sources that mention Jesus’ death, and thirteen that specifically refer to the Resurrection, with an additional ten providing relevant facts surrounding it.²⁴

One of the most interesting references concerns the darkness that enveloped the land during the time Jesus was hanging on the cross. As a skeptic, I read about this phenomenon in the Bible and scoffed, “There’s no way the sky went dark. I don’t even think Christians really believe that!” I figured that someone had added this phony incident at some later date, as a way of sensationalizing a theological point. To me, it was just one more example of why the biblical accounts couldn’t be trusted.

But a first-Century Greek historian named Thallus, who was not a Christian, wrote a history of the Eastern Mediterranean world in 52 A.D. and he actually discussed this sudden darkness. His tactic was to try to explain it away as being an eclipse of the sun, even though this would not have been possible given the timing of the crucifixion.²⁵

Again history provides more bits of affirmation that the Jesus of faith is the Jesus of history.

THE VERDICT OF HISTORY

If every shred of historical documentation for Jesus rising from the dead is evidence for our own eventual resurrection, we can face the future with confident expectancy. The hope that Christians will overcome the grave and spend eternity with God is not the desperate longing of people too afraid to face their own mortality. Instead, it’s a rational and logical conclusion based on the compelling testimony of history.

“No intelligent jury in the world,” said Lord Darling, the brilliant chief justice of England, “could fail to bring in a verdict that the Resurrection story is true.”

For the Christian, that’s reassuring. For spiritual seekers, that’s a challenge that should be taken seriously. I’ve been in both camps. On a day that started out bright and beautiful in June 1983, I was glad I was in Christ’s camp.

At the time, I had been working as managing editor of a newspaper in Missouri and had brought my family to Chicago to visit my mother for a few days. Late that night, I got up feeling ill and promptly collapsed in tremendous pain.

My wife called the paramedics. As they were on their way, I was sprawled on the floor—my breathing shallow, my pulse erratic, my skin pale—fighting to stay conscious and feeling an ominous numbness creep up my arms and legs. ‘This is it,” I thought to myself. I figured I was going to die just like my friend Frank had several years earlier

I’ll admit it I was scared. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to see my children grow up. I wanted to live a long and happy life with Leslie. But I had been a Christian for about eighteen months, and I knew with certainty that I could trust two things if I died: first that God would watch over Leslie and the kids; second, that the moment I closed my eyes in death, I would reopen them in the presence of God.

And Jesus would put his arm around me and say to the Father, “I know this man. I love him, and he loves me. I’ve paid for every single sin he ever committed. On the merits of what I did on the cross, he is washed clean of all wrongdoing and clothed in my goodness—and therefore invited to spend eternity in heaven.”

I was in a win-win situation: if I lived, everything would be fine, and if I died, everything would be fine. That gave me the kind of courage I needed to cope with the crisis.

Obviously I didn’t die. After nearly a week in the hospital, during which doctors were never quite able to diagnose the malady that had stricken me that night, I emerged to experience lots of other bright and beautiful days. But sooner or later one of them will be my last. Death still stalks me, as it does you.

But we can proceed with bold assurance, thanks to the evidence of history that establishes with convincing clarity how Jesus not only preceded us in death but also came back from the dead and blazed the trail to heaven.

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God,” said the apostle John, “so that you may know that you have eternal life.”²⁷ (166-183)

Notes

1. Abigail Van Buren, “Think Ahead, Avoid Boating Tragedies,” Chicago Tribune (June 28,1995).

2. Job 14:14 (NIV)

3. John 11:25—26 (NIV)

4. 1 Corinthians 15:17 (NIV)

5. Gary Habermas and Antony Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), xi, emphasis added.

6. Donald McFarlan, ed., The Guinness Book of World Records (New York Bantam, 1991), 547.

7. Ross Clifford, ed., The Case far the Empty Tomb: Leading Lawyers Look at the Resurrection (Claremont, Calif.: Albatross, 1991), 112.

8. Ibid.

9. John 19:1 (NIV)

10. C. Truman Davis, “The Crucifixion of Jesus,” Arizona Medicine (March 1965), 185, quoted by Josh McDowell, The Resurrection Factor (San Bernardino: Here’s Life, 1981), 43.

11. McDowell, The Resurrection Factor, 44.

12. William D. Edwards et at, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association (March 21. 1986), 1463.

13. J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 152-53.

14. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, eds., Jesus under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 150.

15. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), 285.

16. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, 150-51; Wilkins and Moreland, Jesus under Fire, 43.

17. 1 Corinthians 15:6 (NIV)

18. Wilkins and Moreland, Jesus under Fire, 43.

19. Ibid., 41.

20. Charles Colson, Loving God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 69.

21. Craig, Reasonable Faith, 284.

22. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, 179-80.

23. Ibid., 181, emphasis added.

24. Gary Habermas, The Verdict of History: Conclusive Evidence for the Life of Jesus (Nashville: Nelson, 1988), 169—72.

25. Ibid., 93—94.

26. Val Grieve, Verdict on the Empty Tomb (London: Church Pastoral Aid Society, 1976), 26.

27. 1 John 5:13, emphasis added.

The passages below are taken from Ravi Zacharias’ book, “Can Man Live Without God,” published in 1994.

There really are two questions that have relevance on this matter of Jesus’ resurrection. The first is, “Did Jesus, indeed, rise from the dead?” The second is the equally emphatic: “So what?”

In terms of the first, no event in history has been so subjected to scrutiny and analysis as this claim of Jesus. This focus alone is an indicator of the importance of the event. So many ingenious ways have been concocted to falsify this cardinal truth of the Christian faith—–from the swoon theory to the disciples’ self-delusion—–that it almost brings humor into the situation. I have often been amazed at the lengths to which scholars have been willing to go in an attempt to debunk the resurrection while scores of other religious figures (such as Krishna, Buddha, or Mohammed) have been left totally unstudied. An average student in India, for example, does not even know when Krishna was born or if indeed he ever was. At the same time, he or she has theorized about Jesus quite a bit.

This is a strange and ironic phenomenon, for even today while religious conversation in the workplace is being vociferously discouraged, the name of Jesus is still probably mentioned more than any other name—–to be sure with profane exclamation, but nevertheless He is mentioned. In fact, our very calendar is positioned by the birth of Jesus. Of all His claims, His promise of His resurrection and its fulfillment was understandably the most controversial, but it was the ultimate justification of His message.

The issue of the resurrection naturally evokes interest. Did it really happen? May I suggest for your careful reading the debate on this subject that most thoroughly examines the evidence. The protagonist was historian Gary Habermas and the antagonist, Anthony Flew. The arguments and evidences marshaled by Professor Habermas left Flew on the run for most of the debate. The fundamental problem for the resurrection that Flew presented was really the same one that has been set forth by Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most influential critical theologians of this century—–and a leading exponent in “demythologizing” the Scriptures. Bultmann rejected the resurrection a priori—–just as his personal assumption. To his obviously prejudicial disposing of this historical event, Professor Jon MacQuarrie said:

And here we must take Bultmann to task for what appears to be an entirely arbitrary dismissal of the possibility of understanding the resurrection as an objective-historical event. . . . The fallacy of such reasoning is obvious. The one valid way in which we can ascertain whether a certain event took place or not is not by bringing in some sweeping assumption to show that it could not have taken place, but to consider the historical evidence available, and decide on that.¹

MacQuarrie goes on to say that “Bultmann does not take the trouble to examine what evidence could be addressed to show that the resurrection was an objective-historical event. He assumes that it is a myth.”²

In effect, the facts are unblushingly ignored. This is the precise prejudice with which much of liberal scholarship has treated the resurrection. In real terms, the New Testament is easily the best attested ancient writing in terms of the sheer number of documents, the time span between the event and the document, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity. As the noted scholar Giza Vermes has said, “It should not be beyond the capabilities of an educated man to sit down and with a mind empty of prejudice read the account of Mark, Matthew, and Luke as though for the first time.”³

When an honest reader looks at the affirmations that are made and the substantiations that are provided, the following deductions ensue:

1. Jesus Christ Himself talked of His resurrection on repeated occasions. Both His enemies and His followers were told to expect it. Those who sought to smother His teaching took elaborate steps to counter the possibility of His claim, including the placement of a Roman guard at the door to the tomb.

2. Although His supporters basically understood His promise to rise from the dead and had even witnessed His raising of Lazarus, they did not really believe that He meant it literally until after the fact. Therefore, they could not be accused of creating the scenario for this deception.

3. It was the post-resurrection appearance that made the ultimate difference to the skeptical mind of Thomas and the resistant will of Paul.

4. The transformation of the disciples from a terrified bunch of individuals who felt themselves betrayed into a fearless group ready to proclaim the message to Rome and to the rest of the world cannot be explained with a mere shrug of the shoulder.

5. Had the Roman authorities wanted to eradicate Jesus’ teaching once and for all, they would have only needed to present His dead body—–but they could not. There is something often missed here. If the disciples were fabricators of an ideal, they could have merely posited a spiritual resurrection, which could have been done even with the presence of a dead body. Instead, they went the hard way, by talking of the resurrection of the actual physical body, which, if not true, was an enormous risk to take should the body have ever been detected. No, they believed in a literal resurrection because they had witnessed it. This is a very telling piece of evidence in light of the fact that Rome, itself, once diametrically opposed to the gospel, was later won over to Jesus’ message. The religious leaders wanted nothing more than they wanted to stifle Christianity. And in fact, Jesus’ own brother James was not a believer until after the resurrection.

6. One other very interesting factor to bring to our attention is from non-Christian sources. Even the Koran, which is hardly in favor of the Christian message, attests to Jesus’ virgin birth and credits Him with the unique power to raise the dead, a most interesting notation often forgotten by the Muslims themselves.

In summary, it was Jesus’ victory over the grave that provided the grand impetus for the early church to tell the world that God had spoken and, indeed, had done so in a dramatic and incontrovertible manner. All this transpired in history and is open to the historian’s scrutiny.

The Illusion of Neutrality

But that brings us to the second question: “So what?” The reason for this question is not hard to understand. The resurrection by itself may not be self-explicating. It could be argued a few other ways that this “just happened,” so why not treat it, then, as an aberration? But the resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated or vacuous event. It comes on the heels of a series of other events and teachings that have to be taken as a whole. Devoid of a context, the resurrection can be ignored, but positioned as it is with the birth, life, and death of one so unique, so without peer, so exclusive in His claims and instruction on life’s nature and destiny, it would be foolhardy to dismiss the resurrection with “So what?” Robert Browning captured the choice we face very well.

If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more—

Account Him, for reward of what He was

Now and for ever, wretchedest of all.

For see: Himself conceived of life as love,

Conceived of love as what must enter in,

Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved.

See if, for every finger of thy hands

There be not found, that day the world shall end,

Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ’s word

That He will grow incorporate with all,

Groom for each bride. Can a mere man do this?

Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do.

Call Christ, then, the illimitable God,

Or lost!⁴

Christ—–He is either the illimitable God or one dreadfully lost. There is no room for a theory that says He was “merely a good man.” Study His life with unyielding honesty and the answer is evident. It is this hope He brings that grants us hope for each individual, for our communities, and for our world. Without this hope of life beyond the grave, every question from love to justice becomes a mockery of the mind.

Billy Graham on one occasion told of a meeting he had with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, at one time mayor of Cologne, imprisoned by Hitler for his opposition to the Nazi regime, and later chancellor of the West German Federal Republic from 1949 to 1963. Adenauer truly deserves the title of “statesman” as he picked up the broken pieces of his country and helped to rebuild it in a fractured world. On this occasion, he looked the evangelist in the eye and said, “Mr. Graham, do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?” Graham, somewhat surprised by the pointedness of the question answered, “Of course I do.” To that confident reply Chancellor Adenauer said, “Mr. Graham, outside of the resurrection of Jesus, I do not know of any other hope for this world.”

I have found this same sentiment echoed in two of the nations of our world presently in drastic transition. I refer to an occasion when I had been invited to deliver a series of lectures at the Lenin Military Academy and to participate in a round-table discussion at the Center for Geopolitical Strategy in Moscow. Present at the discussion were my wife, a colleague, and myself, and six Russian generals—–all but one, atheists. The one-and-a-half-hour interaction we had was a momentous occasion in my own life. As we entered this imposing building, eight stories above the ground and four stories below, I was aware that I was in a historic setting; for out of this grand structure had been graduated all of the previous general secretaries of the USSR. In the welcoming hall, we were introduced to the great heroes of Russian warfare—–Peter the Great and Kutusov as well as modern-day geniuses in geopolitical maneuvering. Every facet of the building was pompous and stately, intended not accidentally I am sure, to make the individual feel small and insignificant.

Here, in its inner chambers, our discussion began. As the conversation unfolded from early unease through robust argumentation all the way to our very warm and amiable conclusion, something incredible happened. One by one, each of these generals conceded that Russia was now in a pathetic state, not just economically but morally. As the men stood up to bid us good-bye, the senior-ranking general grasped my hand and said, “Dr. Zacharias, I believe what you have brought us is the truth. But it is so hard to change after seventy years of believing a lie.” Outside of God, they, too, saw no other hope.

That same sentiment was again echoed by some of the framers of the Peace Accord after I finished a series of talks in Johannesburg, South Africa.

As I reflect on that, the leaders’ confession and the words of the Russian general are haunting. After seventy years of believing a lie, it is hard to change. We stand at a moment in history where once-Marxist nations admit to a dastardly experiment that has failed, an experiment that demonstrates beyond any doubt the dire consequences that are reaped when God is eliminated from the framework of life’s choices. Yet strangely enough, we in the West are now moving toward that same ideological base, unwilling to believe what stares us in the face. In Russia, in the name of equality, the individual was offered at the altar of the state. Here, in the name of humanism, human beings are steadily being denuded and offered up at the altar of economic and hedonistic gains. What a contrast this is to the value Christ places upon each individual life, when every facet of life and its context is given significance.

Many years ago, while he was a professor of philosophy at Princeton, the German scholar and distinguished Harvard graduate Walter Kaufmann wrote a book, The Faith of a Heretic. It was the American equivalent of Bishop John A. T Robinson’s book, Honest to God. As Kaufmann brought his book to a climax, he said this:

That there are about a hundred million galaxies within range of our telescopes, and that our own galaxy alone contains hundreds of thousands of planets which may well support life and beings like ourselves seems strange to those brought up on the Bible, but not necessarily strange to Oriental believers.

For those not familiar with the sacred books of the East, the contrast may come to life as they compare Renaissance and Chinese paintings: here [in the Renaissance] the human figures dominate the picture, and the landscape serves as a background; there [in the Chinese paintings] the landscape is the picture, and the human beings in it have to be sought out. Here man seems all-important; there his cosmic insignificance is beautifully represented.

Modern science suggests that in important respects the Oriental religions were probably closer to the facts than the Old Testament or the New. It does not follow that we ought to accept the Buddha’s counsel of resignation and detachment, falling out of love with the world. Nor need we emulate Lao-tze’s wonderful whimsy and his wise mockery of reason, culture, and human effort. There are many possibilities: I say with Shakespeare, ‘All the world’s a stage.” Man seems to play a very insignificant part in the universe, and my part is negligible. The question confronting me is not, except perhaps in idle moments, what part might be more amusing, but what I wish to make of my part. And what I want to do and would advise others to do is to make the most of it: put into it all you have got, and live, and, if possible, die with some measure of nobility.⁵

I beg to differ with this fine scholar, but I have to wonder whether he has understood either Christianity or the Eastern religions; for that matter, his equivocation of the Christian message as synonymous with the Renaissance is at best tendentious, if not pathetic, for it is humanism that is built on the Renaissance, not Christianity. But his farcical conclusion of “make the best of it” is most betrayed by his words extolling the oriental genius, “[Man’s] cosmic insignificance is beautifully represented.” This is equivalent to our bloodletting and hate-filled films’ issuing the all-comforting disclaimer at the end, “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.” Nothing is said about any harm that may have been done to the people during the making of the film or to the innocent public who viewed it. But Kaufmann can be forgiven for this oxymoronic conclusion. He defined philosophy in his first line of the book as “a chaos of abstruse ideas”!

To tell us to die with nobility when there is no hope beyond the grave is farcical at best. All of Kaufmann’s philosophizing on this matter is an attempt to smother that irrepressible longing, the longing for life beyond the grave, which, in his scheme of things, is neither explained nor satisfied. Contrast this with the fact of Christ’s resurrection, which both justifies this longing and satisfies with fulfillment. In reality, when one denies the possibility of life beyond the grave—–when one tries to live without God—–the greatest problem for the skeptic still remains, the problem of life’s suffering. It is to answer that question now in a broader context that I turn to Jesus’ teaching on the nature of suffering. (161-167)

Notes

1. Jon MacQuarrie, An Existential Theology: A Comparison of Heidegger and Bultmann (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 185—6.

2. Ibid., 186.

3. Giza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (London: 1973), 19.

4. Robert Browning, “A Death in the Desert.”

5. Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic, 376.

    It is interesting to note that the Bible tells us that, three days after Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, He began to appear:

1.  to Mary Magdalene outside His tomb in the early hour of Sunday morning. Jesus called her “Mary” and she recognized Him. (John 20:10—18 NKJV)

2.  to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary on the early Sunday morning. Jesus told them, “Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.” (Matthew 28:1—10 NKJV)

3.  to Cleopas and another disciple on the first day of the week, at the road to Emmaus, where Jesus explained the Scriptures and broke bread with them (Luke 24:13—32 NKJV)

4.  to eleven disciples and others, on the evening of the first day of the week, where He told them, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” He ate cooked fish and some honeycomb in their presence. (Luke 24:33—49 NKJV)

5.  to ten apostles and others, with Thomas absent, on the late Sunday evening, and showed them His hands and His side. (John 20:19—23 NKJV)

6.  to Thomas and the other apostles and He asked Thomas to put his fingers at His side and look at His hand and to “stop your doubting, and believe!” (John 20:26—30 TEV)

7.  to seven apostles at Lake Tiberias where He ate fish and bread with them (John 21:1—14 NKJV)

8.  to the eleven disciples and He told them “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, . . .” (Matthew 28:16—20 NKJV)

9.  to the apostles at the Mount of Olives before his ascension. He told them, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. . .” (Luke 24:49—52) and (Acts 1:4—9 NKJV)

10.             The Acts of the Apostles reports many instances of Jesus appearing to various people after His resurrection:

i)              Acts 1:3-4—Luke reports “to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”

ii)         Acts 2:32 —Peter says “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.”

iii)    Acts 3:14-15—Peter repeats “But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.”

iv)         Acts 7:55-56—“But he (Steven), being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, ‘Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’”

v)              Acts 9:3-5—Jesus appears to Saul: “As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.  Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’  And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’”  

vi)         Acts 10:40-41—Peter says “Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.”

vii)    Acts 13:31—Paul says, “He was seen for many days by those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses to the people.”

1. 1 Corinthians 15:6—Paul reports that Jesus, “was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.”

     However, there are many questions that need comprehensive answers. Questions such as:

·         Did Jesus actually die on the cross?

·         How do we know that Jesus has resurrected?

·         Was Jesus resurrection a hoax?

·         Could the resurrection be a hallucination of the disciples?

·         Was Jesus resurrection real?

·         Is the Bible the only source that tells us about Jesus resurrection?

·         Are there evidences in other historical books to support Jesus resurrection?

·         Can a convincing case for Jesus resurrection be put forward?

·         What are the evidences for Jesus resurrection?
    

    For a more comprehensive reading about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, please see my web site, http://www.geocities.com/lauho08 under the heading “Resurrection of Jesus Christ” on the following topics:

·         Did Jesus Christ rise from the dead?

·         Evidence FOR the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

·         No Resurrection, No Christianity

·         The Empty Tomb of Jesus

·         The Evidence for the Resurrection

·         Was Jesus’ resurrection a hoax and His death a sham?

·         Was Jesus seen alive after His death on the Cross?

·         What are the Circumstantial Evidence FOR the Resurrection?

     A certain type of ministry of the gospel is cruel. It does not mean to be, but it is. It means to magnify grace, but what it does is rather the opposite. It scales down the problem of sin, and loses touch with the purpose of God.

     The effect is twofold: first, to depict the work of grace as less than it really is; second, to leave people with a gospel that is not big enough to cover the whole area of their need. Isaiah once pictured the misery of inadequate resources in terms of short beds and narrow blankets (Isaiah 28:20 NIV)—a sure recipe for long-term discomfort and discontent, with a chance of serious illness thrown in. To such unhappiness, in the spiritual realm, this kind of ministry exposes all who take it seriously. Its prevalence is a major hindrance to knowledge of God and growth in grace at the present time. We hope we may do service to some by exposing it, and trying to show where it falls short.

     What kind of ministry is this? The first thing to say is that, sad as it may seem, it is an evangelical ministry. Its basis is acceptance of the Bible as God’s Word and its promises as God’s assurances. Its regular themes are justification by faith through the cross, new birth through the Spirit, and new life in the power of Christ’s resurrection. Its aim is to bring people to new birth and from there lead them on into the fullest possible experience of resurrection life. It is in every sense a ministry of the gospel. Its errors are not the errors of those whose ministry strays from the central evangelical message. They are errors to which only an evangelical ministry could ever be exposed. This must be stressed at the start.

     But if it is a doctrinally sound evangelical ministry, whatever can go wrong with it? How can anything be seriously amiss with it, when its message and aims are so scriptural? The answer is that a ministry which is wholly concerned with gospel truths can still go wrong by giving those truths an inaccurate application. Scripture is full of truth that will heal souls, just as a chemist’s shop is stocked with remedies for bodily disorders; but in both cases a misapplication of what, rightly used, will heal, will have a disastrous effect. If, instead of dabbing iodine on, you drink it, the effect will be the reverse of curative!—and the doctrines of new birth and new life can be misapplied too, with unhappy results. That is what seems to happen in the case under discussion, as we shall see.

MISAPPLIED DOCTRINES

     The type of ministry that is here in mind starts by stressing, in an evangelistic context, the difference that becoming a Christian will make. Not only will it bring us forgiveness of sins, peace of conscience, and fellowship with God as our Father; it will also mean that, through the power of the indwelling Spirit, we will be able to overcome the sins that previously mastered us, and the light and leading that God will give us will enable us to find a way through problems of guidance, self-fulfilment, personal relations, heart’s desire, and such like, which had hitherto defeated us completely.

     Now, put like that, in general terms, these great assurances are scriptural and true—praise God, they are! But it possible so to stress them, and so to play down the rougher side of the Christian life—the daily chastening, the endless war with sin and Satan, the periodic walk in darkness—as to give the impression that normal Christian living is a perfect bed of roses, a state of affairs in which everything in the garden is lovely all the time, and problems no longer exist—or , if they come, they have only to be taken to the throne of grace, and they will melt away at once. This is to suggest that the world, the flesh, and the devil, will give us no serious trouble once we are Christians; nor will our circumstances and personal relationship[s ever be a problem to us; nor will we ever be a problem to ourselves. Such suggestions are mischievous, however, because they are false.

     Of course, an equally lop-sided impression can be given the other way. You can so stress the rough side of the Christian life, and so play down the bright side, as to give the impression that Christian living is for the most part grievous and gloomy—hell on earth, in hope of heaven hereafter! No doubt this impression has from time to time been given; no doubt the ministry We are examining here is partly a reaction against it. But it must be said that of these two extremes of error, the first is the worse, just to the extent that false hopes are a greater evil than false fears. The second error will, in the mercy of God, lead only to the pleasant surprise of finding that Christians have joy as well as sorrow; But the first, which pictures the normal Christian life as trouble-free, is bound to lead to lead to bitter disillusionment sooner or later.

     Our assertion is that, in order to appeal compellingly to human wistfulness, the type of ministry we are examining allows itself to promise at this point more than God has undertaken to perform in this world. This, we hold, is the first feature that marks it out as cruel. It buys results with false hopes. To be sure, the cruelty is not that of malice. It is prompted rather by irresponsible kindness. The preacher wants to win his hearers to Christ; therefore he glamorises the Christian life, making it sound as gay and carefree as he can, in order to allure them. But the absence of a bad motive, and the presence of a good one, does not in any way reduce the damage which his exaggerations do.

     For what happens, as ministers know all too well, is this. While tough-minded listeners who had heard this kind of thing before take the preacher’s promises with a pinch of salt, a few serious seekers will believe him absolutely. On this basis, they are converted; they experience the new birth; and they advance into their new life joyfully certain that they have left all the old headaches and heartaches behind them. And then they find that it is not like that at all. Long-standing problems of temperament, of personal relations, of felt wants, of nagging temptations, are still there—sometimes, indeed, intensified. God does not make their circumstances notably easier; rather the reverse. Dissatisfaction over wife, or husband, or parents, or in-laws, or children, or colleagues, or neighbours, recurs. Temptations and bad habits which their conversion experience seemed to have banished for good reappear. As the first great waves of joy rolled over them during the opening weeks of their Christian experience, they had really felt that all problems had solved themselves, but now they see that it was not so, and that the trouble-free life which they were promised has not materialised. Things which got them down before they were Christians are threatening to get them down again. What are they to think now?

     The truth here is that the God, of whom it was said, ‘he tends his flock like a shepherd: he gathers the lambs in his arms’ (Isaiah 40:11), is very gentle with very young Christians, just as mothers are with very young babies. Often the start of their Christian career is marked by great emotional joy; striking providences, remarkable answers to prayer, and immediate fruitfulness in their first acts of witness; thus God encourages them, and establishes them in ‘the life’. But as they grow stronger, and are able to bear more, he exercises them in a tougher school. He exposes them to as much testing by the pressure of opposed and discouraging influences as they are able to bear—not more (see the promise, 1 Corinthians 10;13 NIV), but equally not less (see the admonition, Acts 14:12 NIV). Thus he builds our character, strengthens our faith, and prepares us to help others. Thus he crystallises our sense of values. Thus he glorifies himself in our lives, making his strength perfect in our weakness.

     There is nothing unnatural, therefore, in an increase of temptations, conflicts, and pressures, as the Christian goes on with God—indeed, something would be wrong if it did not happen. But Christians who have been told that the normal Christian life is unshadowed and trouble-free can only conclude, as experiences of inadequacy and imperfection pile in upon them, that they must have lapsed from normal. ‘Something’s gone wrong,’ they will say, ‘it isn’t working any more!’ And their question will be: how can it be made to ‘work’ again?

WRONG REMEDY

     The second cruel feature of the ministry we have in mind appears at this point. Having created bondage—for such it is—by leading young Christians to regard all experiences of frustration and perplexity as signs of sub-standard Christianity, it now induces further bondage by the straight-jacket of a remedy by which it proposes to dispel these experiences. It insists on diagnosing the ‘struggle’, which it equates with ‘defeat’, as a relapse caused by failure to maintain ‘consecration’ and ‘faith’. At first (so it is suggested) the convert was fully surrendered to his new-found Saviour; hence his joy; but since then he has grown cold or careless, or compromised his obedience in some way, or ceased to sustain moment-by-moment trust in the Lord Jesus, and that is why his experience is now as it is.

     The remedy, therefore, is for him to find, and confess, and forsake, his defection; to reconsecrate himself to Christ, and maintain his consecration daily; and to learn the habit, when problems and temptations come, of handing them over to Christ to deal with for him. If he does this (it is affirmed) he will find himself once more, in the theological as well as the metaphorical sense, on top of the world.

     Now it is true that if Christians grow careless towards God, and slip back into ways of deliberate sin, their inward joy and rest of heart grows less, and discontent of spirit comes to mark them more and more. Those who through union with Christ are ‘dead to sin’ (Romans 6:1)—done with it, that is, as the ruling principle of their lives—cannot find in sinning even that limited pleasure which it gave them before they were reborn. Nor can they indulge in wrong ways without imperilling their enjoyment of God’s favour—God will see to that! ‘Because of the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry, I smote him, I hid my face and was angry; but he went on backsliding . . .’(Isaiah 57:15 RSV). That is how God reacts when his children lapse into wrong ways. Unregenerate apostates are often cheerful souls, but back-sliding Christians are always miserable. So if you find yourself asking:

Where is the blessedness I knew

when first I saw the Lord?

you ought certainly to ask, before you go any further, whether there have been particular wilful

sins that made Thee mourn,

And drove Thee from my breast.

If so, then the remedy prescribed above is, at least in broad principle, the right one.

     But it may not be so; and sooner or later a time will come for every Christian when it is not so. Sooner or later, the truth will be that God is now exercising his child—his consecrated child—in the ways of adult godliness as he exercised Job, and some of the psalmists, and the addressees of the epistle to the Hebrews, by exposing them to strong attacks from the world, the flesh, and the devil, so that their powers of resistance might grow greater, and their character as people of God become stronger. As we said above, all the children of God undergo this treatment—it is part of the ‘chastening of the Lord’ (Hebrew 12:15 KJV, echoing Job 5:17; Proverbs 3:11), to which he subjects every child whom he loves. And if this is what is happening to the perplexed Christian, then the proposed remedy will be disastrous.

     For what does it do? It sentences devoted Christians to a treadmill life of hunting each day for non-existent failures in consecration, in the belief that if only they could find some such failures to confess and forsake they could recover an experience of spiritual infancy which God means them now to leave behind. Thus it not only produces spiritual regression and unreality; it sets them at cross-purposes with their God, who has taken from them the carefree glow of spiritual babyhood, with its huge chuckles and contented passivity, precisely in order that he may lead them into an experience that is more adult and mature. Earthly parents enjoy their babies, but are, to say the least, sorry if their growing children want to be babies again, and they hesitate to let them return to babyish ways. It is exactly so with our heavenly Father. He wants us to grow in Christ, not to stay babes in Christ. But the teaching we have in view here sets us against God at this point, and sets before us a return to babyhood as our supreme good.

     Again, this is cruelty, just as the old Chinese habit of binding girls’ feet and forcing them permanently out of shape was cruelty, and the fact that the motive is kindness is neither here nor there. The least effect of accepting the proposed remedy will be arrested spiritual development—the emergence of a childish, grinning, irresponsible, self-absorbed breed of evangelical adults. The worst effects, among sincere and honest believers, will be morbid introspection, hysteria, mental breakdown, and loss of faith, at any rate in its evangelical form.

LOSING SIGHT OF GRACE

     What, basically, is wrong with this teaching? It is open to criticism from many angles. It fails to grasp New Testament teaching on sanctification and the Christian warfare. It does not understand the meaning of growth in grace. It does not understand the operations of indwelling sin. It confuses the Christian life on earth with the Christian life as it will be in heaven. It  misconceives the psychology of Christian obedience (Spirit-prompted activity, not Spirit-prompted passivity). But the basic criticism must surely be that it loses sight of the method and purpose of grace. Let us try to expound this.

     What is grace? In the New Testament, grace means God’s love in action towards people who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. Grace means God sending his only Son to descend into hell on the cross so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven. ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

     The New Testament knows both a will for grace and a work of grace. The former is God’s eternal plan to save; the latter is God’s ‘good work in you’ (Philippians 1:6 NIV) whereby he calls you into living fellowship with Christ (1 Corinthians 1:9), raises you from death to life (Ephesians 2:1-6), seals you as his own by the gift of his Spirit (Ephesians 1:13f), transforms you into Christ’s image (2 Corinthians 3:18), and will finally raise your body in glory (Romans 8:30; 1 Corinthians I5:47-54).

     It was fashionable among Protestant scholars some years ago to say that grace means God’s loving attitude as distinct from his loving work, but that is an unscriptural distinction. In (for instance) 1 Corinthians 15:10—‘by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.’—the word ‘grace’ clearly denotes God’s loving work in Paul, whereby he made him first a Christian and then a minister.

     What is the purpose of grace? Primarily, to restore our relationship with God. When God lays the foundation of this restored relationship, by forgiving our sins as we trust his Son, he does so in order that henceforth we and he may live in fellowship, and what he does in renewing our nature is intended to make us capable of, and actually to lead us into, the exercise of love, trust, delight, hope, and obedience Godward—those acts which, from our side, make up the reality of fellowship with God, who is constantly making himself known to us. This is what all the work grace aims at—an ever deeper knowledge of God, an ever closer fellowship with him. Grace is God drawing us sinners closer and closer to himself.

     How does God in grace prosecute this purpose? Not by shielding us from assault by the world, the flesh, and the devil, nor by protecting us from burdensome and frustrating circumstances, nor yet by shielding us from troubles created by our own temperament and psychology; but rather by exposing us to all these things, so as to overwhelm us with a sense of our own inadequacy, and to drive us to cling to him more closely. This is the ultimate reason, from our standpoint, why God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another—it is to ensure that we shall learn to hold him fast. The reason why the Bible spends so much of its time reiterating that God is a strong rock, a firm defence, and a sure refuge and help for the weak, is that God spends so much of his time bringing home to us that we are weak, both mentally and morally, and dare not trust ourselves to find, or to follow, the right road.

     When we walk along a clear road feeling fine, and someone takes our arm to help us, as likely as not we shall impatiently shake him off but when we are caught in rough country in the dark, with a storm getting up and our strength spent, and someone takes our arm to help us, we shall thankfully lean on him. And God wants us to feel that our way through life is rough and perplexing, so that we may learn thankfully to lean on him. Therefore he takes steps to drive us out of self-confidence to trust in himself—in the classical scriptural phrase for the secret of the godly life, to ‘wait on the Lord’.

THE GOD WHO RESTORES

     This truth has many applications. One of the most startling is that God actually uses our sins and mistakes to this end. He employs the educative discipline of failures and mistakes very frequently. It is striking to see how much of the Bible deals with godly people making mistakes, and God chastening them for it.

     Abraham, promised a son, but made to wait for him, loses patience, makes the mistake of acting the amateur providence, and begets Ishmael—and is made to wait for thirteen more years before God speaks to him again (Genesis 16:16; 17:1). Moses makes the mistake of trying to save his people by acts of self-assertion, throwing his weight about, killing an Egyptian, insisting on sorting out the Israelites’ private problems for them—and finds himself banished for many decades to the backside of the desert, to bring him to a less vainglorious mind. David makes a run of mistakes—seducing Bathsheba and getting Uriah killed, neglecting his family, numbering the people for prestige—and in each case is chastened bitterly. Jonah makes the mistake of running away from God’s call—and finds himself inside a great fish.

     So we might go on. But the point to stress is that the human mistake, and the immediate divine displeasure, were in no case the end of the story. Abraham learned to wait God’s time. Moses was cured of his self-confidence (indeed his subsequent diffidence was itself almost sinful! – see Exodus 4:14). David found repentance after each of his lapses, and was closer to God at the end than at the beginning. Jonah prayed from the fish’s belly, and lived to fulfil his mission to Nineveh.

     God can bring good out of the extremes of our own folly; God can restore the years that the locust has eaten. They say that those who never make mistakes never make anything; certainly, these men made mistakes, but through their mistakes God taught them to know his grace, and to cleave to him in a way that would never have happened otherwise. Is your trouble a sense of failure? the knowledge of having made some ghastly mistake? Go back to God; his restoring grace waits for you.

     Unreality in religion is an accursed thing. Unreality is the curse of the kind of teaching that we have challenged in this chapter. Unreality towards God is the wasting disease of much modern Christianity. We need God to make us realists about both ourselves and him. Perhaps there is a word for us in the famous hymn in which John Newton describes the passage into the kind of realism that we have been seeking to induce.

I asked the Lord, that I might grow

     In faith, and love, and every grace;

Might more of His salvation know,

     And seek more earnestly His face,

I hoped that in some favoured hour

     At once He’d answer my request,

And by His love’s constraining power

     Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel

     The hidden evils of my heart;

And let the angry powers of hell

     Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed

     Intent to aggravate my woe;

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

     Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

‘Lord, why is this?’ I trembling cried,

     ‘Wilt thou pursue Thy worm to death?’

‘Tis in this way,’ the Lord replied,

     ‘I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ

     From self and pride to set thee free;

And break thy schemes of earthly joy,

     That thou may’st seek thy all in me.’

                                  (276-286)

In trying to convert any person, Christians ought to be guided by what Mother Teresa says:

“Not even Almighty God can convert a person unless that person wants it. What we are all trying to do by our work, by serving the people, is to come closer to God. If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are, and then by being better we come closer and closer to Him. If we accept Him fully in our lives, then that is conversion. What approach would I use? For me, naturally, it would be a Catholic one, for you it may be Hindu, for someone else, Buddhist, according to one’s conscience. What God is in your mind you must accept. But I cannot prevent myself from trying to give you what I have.” (Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work, 136).

“God has His own ways and means to work in the hearts of men, and we do not know how close they are to Him, but by their actions we will always know whether they are at His disposal or not. . . . We must not condemn or judge or pass words that will hurt people. Maybe a person has never heard of Christianity. We do not know what way God is appearing to that soul and what way God is drawing that soul, and therefore, who are we to condemn anybody?” (Life in the Spirit, 81—82)

“If anyone thinks and believes that the way he or she is taking is the only way toward God, that is the way God will take. If one knows no other way, if one has no doubts and does not feel the need to keep searching for another way, that is the way to salvation. That is the way God will take to reach that person.” (Stories of Mother Teresa, 17)

“Don’t give in to discouragement. No more must you do so when you try to settle a marriage crisis or convert a sinner and don’t succeed. If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers. Never bother about people’s opinions. Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus.” (Contemplative at the Heart of the World, 107)

But getting the approach to proclaiming the Gospel right is of utmost importance for the Christians. For St Peter tells us to “Be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you, but do it with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15-16 TEV)

The passages below are useful as a general guide when trying to proclaim the Gospel to a non-Christian: whether the person is an atheist, Buddhist, Confucian, Deist, Free-thinker, Judaist, Hindu, Muslim, Pagan, Pantheist, Shinto, Taoist, etc.

The passages below are taken from Malcolm Steer’s book “A Christian’s Evangelistic Pocket Guide to Islam,” published by Christian Focus Publications, Ltd. UK, in 2003

When approaching a Muslim, what is thought of that person is much more important than what is actually said. Actions and reactions speak louder than words. Motives and attitudes are all- important and in this area Christians can sometimes have more problems than others because motives can be confused and complicated.

Therefore, first of all it is necessary to think about general contact with Muslims, and secondly some general principles of approach will be mentioned that will assist us in talking to Muslims about our faith.

General Approach

1) They are human beings like us.

Having spent much of this booklet talking about Islam and how to communicate the Gospel to Muslims we now, surprisingly, want to say that the most important way to achieve the right approach is to forget that the person is a Muslim and remember that he or she is a person. Let us not see then as representatives of the Islamic brotherhood or fundamentalist Islam or whatever, but as people with their own identity and good and bad points just like everyone else.

Many feel that the distinction between the Jews and Samaritans of New Testament times is similar to the distinction between Christians and Muslims today. In Jesus’ day, no Jew had a good word to say about a Samaritan (see John 8:48), but Jesus himself was different. He told a story about someone who cared for a wounded traveler—the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and he healed ten lepers and the one to say thank you was a Samaritan (Luke 17:11-19). We need to be open to Muslims in the same way and appreciate them as people. Sincere Muslims have much in common with sincere Christians. They are struggling to do good and are tempted by evil. They are sometimes lonely, disappointed, troubled, sick or facing death. At the same time, we must also appreciate the Muslim who seems to have no religious concerns and shows no interest in the message of the Gospel.

2) They respond to love and friendship.

This is important. Friendship is valued by people of all societies and cultures. It is never out of place. The Lord’s command to his people in the Old Testament to ‘love the stranger’ is relevant to the Muslim today. It is not a conditional love, to be given to some if they look like responding to our message, but a genuine concern for each person whatever their background. Christian love has been the chief influence in the conversion of Muslims. Be practical in your love. Help in any way that you can without being patronising, be respectful, listen and try to understand their point of view. Remember also to be prepared to receive help from them. Being in someone’s debt often helps to cement a friendship.

3) Don’t be impatient.

If you are building a friendship with a Muslim, don’t rush to explain the Gospel. Opportunities will come through questions. Accept the fact that if your friend comes to faith it will be a long haul and you will only be one part in the chain. We are not looking for quick results!

4) Live a godly life.

The character of the Christian is as important as the message told, particularly at the beginning of a Muslim’s interest in Christianity. The fruit of the Spirit needs to characterise our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The last of these involves a seriousness and reverence which can sometimes be lacking in some Christian meetings. In spite of misunderstanding the way of salvation, many Muslims have a keener sense of the transcendence of God, his majesty and holiness than many Christians. A godly life demands showing respect, giving honour where it is due, being scrupulously honest in all transactions and being polite.

Christians need to live godly lives in their relationships. Many Muslims will regard Western accepted patterns of behaviour as definitely evil. A proper respect between the sexes and moderation in the demonstration of physical attraction will be a great witness by Christians.

Many Muslims see alcoholic drink as part of decadent Western society and we have to be very careful that we do not cause offence in this area.

5) Hospitality.

If you enter the residence of a Muslim you will almost invariably be offered food and drink. Hospitality is a way of life in the Middle East and in Asia. The New Testament writers take up the accepted cultural norm of hospitality and emphasise it as a requirement in the Church towards both Christians and non-Christians.

Christians should also offer hospitality, and particularly in the case of Muslim students from overseas, arrange for them to visit local Christian homes where they can also be offered hospitality.

Approach in Conversation

In Acts chapter 17 from verse 16 onwards we read how the apostle Paul acted in a culture that was totally different from what he had been used to. He had met many Greeks before, of course, but here in Athens the Greek philosophy had taken over and there were probably not many places in the New Testament world where the residents’ lifestyle could be described as ‘spending their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas’. Several of the points we have to make about approach are well illustrated from these verses.

1) Be a good listener.

Someone said once that we have two ears and only one mouth. This is well worth repeating if it encourages Christians to be good listeners. When Paul started speaking on the Areopagus in Athens it was obvious from what he said that he had already done much listening, looking and reading.

However much you know about Islam, you will learn more by listening to Muslims. Ask questions about what they think and how they react to different situations. Don’t listen to criticise, but listen to understand. When they explain something to you, try to explain what they believe back to them. Say to the person, ‘I think I understand, you mean you believe that…’ This approach will not only teach you much about Islam, but will show your friend that you are interested in them as a person and make them more willing to listen to you on a later occasion. Remember that not every Muslim understands their faith and many are not fully orthodox in what they believe. Listen to what they say and you may save yourself from arguing against things your friend does not in fact believe. Do not tell Muslims what they believe! Just take their word for it.

2) Never criticise Muhammad or the Qur’an.

Paul could easily have attacked the ideas and writings of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens, but instead he seemed to highlight some of their writings in order to make a point. It is unnecessary to know many details about the life and character of Muhammad as little seems to be known with absolute certainty anyway. The Qur’an is even more important to the Muslim than the person of Muhammad. Have respect for their book, although, of course, don’t give the impression that you agree with all that it says.

Muhammad was a sincere man who was concerned about the idolatry around him and wanted to bring people back to the worship of the one God. We cannot criticise him, even in our thoughts, without remembering the sad fact that the Christianity he rejected was a heretical Christianity that did little to commend the Gospel. Heretical Christianity can have devastating results.

3) Start with what the person knows.

Paul in Athens starts talking about an altar that the Athenians had built and goes on to talk about the possibility of knowing the ‘unknown God’. When we talk to Muslims we should start where they are. Prayer is an important part of a Muslim’s religious life. If the person prays regularly, ask when and why. How important is it to prostrate oneself in prayer? Why is a mat used? Do they believe God always hears them? Does God just listen to prayer or answer it?

You can talk about the character of God. The Muslim has a very high view of God. Ask about the 99 names of God and what they imply. Discuss the nature of sin and how we can be forgiven. Do we just have to ask for forgiveness?

The Muslim knows that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. They also know that a person must be pure in order to approach God in prayer. We must build on what they already know.

4) Concentrate on Jesus.

Paul concentrated on Jesus and the resurrection to such an extent that the Athenians thought that the ‘resurrection’ was another god to compete with Jesus. We need to be positive in our explanation of the biblical truth about Jesus.

Talk about the birth of Jesus, the character of Jesus, the stories of Jesus and the death of Jesus. Describe him as the Word of God, not the Son of God because that just introduces unhelpful misunderstandings (see Chapter 2).

Many Muslims today are very interested in the person of Jesus. He draws crowds of admirers, as he did during his Life on earth, so we need to talk about him and the daily relationship we enjoy with him that affects our whole lives.

5) Avoid arguments.

A discussion about a difference of belief between friends can be very helpful, but an argument where each party is simply trying to win has no value. We know of no Muslim who has ever been argued into the kingdom of God, but there are many examples of Muslims whose attitude to Christ has been hardened by argument.

6) Talk personally to Muslims alone.

One of the main aims of the increased Islamic profile today is to provide a rallying point for the Muslim cause and to confirm halfhearted Muslims in the faith. If an argument does develop between Muslims and Christians, Muslims will often argue vehemently, as much to convince neighbors and friends that they are true to the cause, as to counter the Christian position. Any Muslim known to be thinking seriously about Christianity is likely to be ‘rescued’ by fellow Muslims.

Personal conversations with Muslims about the faith must, therefore, be on a one-to-one basis and in private. Take care not to speak to other Muslims about such a conversation. Privacy is essential.

Furthermore, it night be helpful to mention at this point, that in order to avoid any misunderstanding in your witnessing, men should be in contact with men and women with women.

A good summary of what we have been saying is found in the following statement prepared by an African Christian leader, himself a convert from Islam.

10 COMMANDMENTS for sharing the Gospel with Muslims

1. Use the Word of God

Muslims respect the sacred books: the Law of Moses, the Psalms, the Gospels and the Qur’an. Let the Word of God speak for itself. The Gospels are the best portions to start with, particularly Matthew and Luke.

2. Be constantly in prayer

It is the Holy Spirit who wins people to Christ. Seek His guidance and power as you present the Word.

3. Be a genuine friend

Saying ‘hello’ isn’t enough. If you really care, show it by inviting them to your home, sharing your time and helping with their problems.

4. Ask thought-provoking questions

“Do you expect to go to heaven? Do you have the assurance that God will accept you? What does the Qur’an teach about forgiveness? May I show you what the Bible teaches?” Questions like these show that you have an interest in the important things of life.

5. Listen attentively

When you ask a question, courtesy requires that you listen to the answer no matter how long it takes. You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll learn.

6. Present your beliefs openly

State what you believe, clearly and without apology, showing Scripture passages to support those teachings. Thus, you place the responsibility for doctrine where it belongs—on the Word of God.

7. Reason, don’t argue

Argument may win a point but lose a hearing. There are some points on which you can argue forever without achieving a thing, except closing a mind against you.

8. Never denigrate Muhammad or the Qur’an

This is as offensive to them as speaking disrespectfully about Christ or the Bible is to us.

9. Respect their customs and sensitivities

Don’t offend by putting your Bible (a holy book) on the floor, or appearing too free with the opposite sex, or refusing hospitality, or making jokes about sacred topics such as fasting, prayer or God.

10. Persevere

Muslims have a lot of rethinking to do when they are confronted with the gospel. But rest assured that the Word of God will do its work in His good time.

Use of resources

In addition to talking to Muslims about your faith, it is also helpful to pass on something for them to read. This could be in English but preferably in the person’s own language. An address is given in the appendix from where literature in different languages can be obtained. As pointed out in chapter two, don’t hesitate to make use of the Gospel accounts (‘Injil’) as many enjoy reading the Scriptures in their own language for they can easily understand them, and find that it focuses on a person for whom they have great admiration and respect.

Make use of other resources such as videos, e.g. the ‘Jesus’ film which is now available in many different languages.

Helping New Believers

If a Muslim does choose to follow Christ we shall be called upon to give much tender loving care. Be prepared to give much personal time to encourage them in the basics of their new life in Christ. This applies particularly to their understanding of the Bible and prayer.

The Muslim idea of Scripture is different from the Christian view so the new believer from a Muslim background needs special help to know how to read the Bible. In Islam there is an emphasis on reciting the Qur’an, so we need to make it clear that Christians do not regard the Bible as a book merely to be recited. Rather, it exists in our own languages to be studied and understood. As the inspired Word of God, it is God’s voice bringing God’s message and therefore contains God’s instructions on how we are to live as Christians. As they read they should find out what God says about how to live their everyday Life. Above all, the whole Bible bears witness to Jesus Christ and so deepens our trust in God through him. So spend time reading the Bible with them and try to enroll them in a daily Bible reading scheme.

Similarly we need to explain the meaning of prayer. For as with Qur’an recitation, Muslim prayer is a ritual which must be performed exactly, and always in Arabic. Knowing the meaning of the words seems less important than the matter of performing it correctly. Therefore, we need to make it clear that the Christian does not think of prayer primarily as ‘performing a ritual’. Christians think of it more as a conversation with God who is their heavenly Father, and to whom they can speak in any language they know.

We also need to explain that the essential meaning of being a Christian is not only to have a personal trust in God through Christ but also to be in fellowship with others who have a similar trust. This aspect of Christian living is of great relevance to the new believer from Islam. Most Muslims do not feel that ‘being a Muslim’ means primarily holding particular beliefs or doctrines but rather belonging to a certain community in which the religious, political and social links are very strong.

It is for this reason that the community is horrified if any member leaves Islam to join another religion for it is felt that the person has not made a private decision of faith but rather has become a sort of ‘traitor’ who has joined a rival community. Obviously, if the person is living away from their own community the immediate possibility of ostracism is lessened, but it is important for the new believer to be part of a new community with a caring, sharing fellowship of Christians whom they feel they can trust. We must be prepared to become a real family to those who do meet rejection.

Concerning witness, do not expose them to publicity or pressure that might put them on the spot with family or countrymen. Do not ask them to give their testimony in public too quickly, especially in the presence of Muslims, but prayerfully wait for them to come to the place of wanting to share their faith in this way.

So in helping the new believer we can see that the more we surround them with the truth of God’s Word and the love of Christ, the more we can prepare them for all that lies ahead, whatever that might be. Let us therefore through love, prayer and the power of God’s Spirit seek to build up new believers so that they will continue to follow Christ whatever the cost may be. (59-76)

Temper takes many forms. The form of temper we now adopt as adults depends very much on what was successfully applied on us as children. For example, if the significant adults had used temper to control us successfully, we now use temper to try to control others. Since we had focused on the injustice of the temper so much, we unconsciously imbibe the very behavior we hated.

Temper can be obvious or it can be subtle. Temper manifests itself in some of the following ways:

a) explosion—-we rage, we use anger to lash out at others and intimidate them.

b) implosion-—we give the silent treatment, we sulk, we turn it inward and beat ourselves up.

c) irritation-–we have little tolerance, we are out of control.

d) repetition—we nag constantly, we are stuck in the same angry groove.

     It is best to avoid all forms of anger because if we give anger an inch, it will take a mile. So don’t let anger get a foothold in our hearts. For once anger gets into our hearts, it is hard to uproot. And if we let the sun go down on our anger, our hearts will harden into resentment and bitterness.

We are the only one who can make ourselves angry. We choose how we respond to the event that upset us. The meaning we give to the event will determine whether we become angry or not. What we tell ourselves makes us angry. How? By telling ourselves that we have been taken undue advantage of, that we have been unfairly treated, abused, bullied, humiliated, browbeaten, intimidated, coerced or mercilessly whacked for minor mistakes or by recounting to ourselves all the perceived wrongs that have been done to us in the past. It is vital that we watch our thoughts as we can temporarily stop our anger when we change our thoughts or change what we tell ourselves. Yet, why do we often become more and more angry? Because we refuse to change our angry thoughts or we choose to churn over and over in our minds what we keep telling ourselves. And what we tell ourselves keep us locked in our anger prison.

     Often, we become angry because we don’t get our ways. We have not learnt the art of allowing, tolerating, accommodating and accepting differences in views, values, mannerisms and perspectives.

Sometimes we become angry because current word or event triggers off some childhood abuse, fear or anxiety.

But, the ultimate objective of all forms of anger is to try to control the behavior of the other person. We use anger to intimidate, manipulate and subdue the other person.

Anger becomes most dangerous when it hardens our hearts and makes us so self-righteous that we cannot see our fault. What we cannot see, in ourselves, we cannot change. When we refuse to apologize for our anger we imprison ourselves in our own self-righteousness. We stand on our pride. We harden our heart. But when we start to say “I am sorry,” we begin to unburden our heart and release ourselves from our own imprisonment. Somehow the chain is removed. The shackle is broken. Sure some will take advantage of our apology but the heavy burden of being locked up in our own anger is lightened. Apology unlocks our heart for the reconciliation to begin.

Easy to talk, but, how do we tame our hot temper? I believe in Jesus Christ so I go to Him for help. You may like to research into your respective religious faith in Bahai, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jains, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, etc, for help.

1) Admit that we are in trouble

     If people can easily trigger us into temper, sulking, impatience, or nagging then we have to admit that “I am out of control with my temper.” When we use temper so readily it becomes a form of emotional abuse. It also means that we are unable to discipline ourselves. We have lost self-control. We have not learnt to separate the important from the little things. We have not learnt to let the small stuff go.

Yes, we can find thousands of reasons why we are so easily provoked into uncontrollable anger and hold on to the anger right into the night. But, unless we recognize and admit that we have trouble with our hot temper, we will never start to tame our temper. As St James has advised, “Are any among you in trouble? They should pray.” (James 5:13 TEV)

2) Pray and Ask Jesus (or your God) for help

        When we pray to God, we will hear that “He speaks to us in our affliction” (Job 36:15 NIV), provided we be still and quietly listen. Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7 NJB) and often, “It is because you do not pray that you do not receive; when you do pray and do not receive, it is because you prayed wrongly, wanting to indulge your passions.” (James 4:2-3 NJB) Therefore, pray to God to repent and to motivate us to restrain our temper. We will succeed and we will fail also. But, we tame our temper one incident at a time. We are always tempted to give up trying as restraining our temper can take a very long time to succeed. But God will strengthen us to control our temper if we will pray for the Holy Spirit as the Helper, Counselor and Comforter to come to our aid.

     As an example of how the Holy Spirit helps us: Normally, we use standard mantra to help ourselves to change. We say,

     I am patient

     I am not fearful

     I am not depressed

     I can control my temper

But subconsciously we know that we are not what we say we are and so we sabotage ourselves. We find that we do not change.

However, if we say:

The Holy Spirit in me makes me patient

The Holy Spirit in me makes me brave

The Holy Spirit in me uplifts me

The Holy Spirit in me helps me control my temper

Our minds can believe this because we give the Holy Spirit the glory. We acknowledge that the credit goes to the Holy Spirit and slowly we will see ourselves change. In this way the Holy Spirit helps to transform us.

     Jesus also teaches that we “need to pray continually and never lose heart” (Luke 18:1 NJB). Prayer is the magical aid when we feel like giving up. Daily prayer will sustain, strengthen and encourage us not to give up.

      Furthermore, we must admit that, often, our hot temper arises from nothing more than our resentment. Where there is resentment, there is a hardening of the heart and there is no forgiveness in our hearts. But, we must not forget that, “if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done.” (Matthew 6:15 TEV) So it is very important for us to repent and ask Jesus to help us to forgive. A forgiven person forgives, so it is vital that we learn to forgive ourselves also.

      One practical way of forgiving is to pray for the one who hurts us, who causes us pain, or even harm. Jesus advises us to, ”pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:28 TEV) and “pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44 NJB).

3) Stop before the temper gets ugly

Anger is a choice. It is a choice to stop a disagreement before it gets ugly. It is a choice to stop and pray because we can sense the anger starting to boil inside and that our hearts are beginning to harden. If we want to control our anger, we should, “be quick to listen but slow to speak and slow to human anger” (James 1:19 NJB).

The earlier we agree, the easier it is to stop the quarrel and the anger from developing. As Solomon says, “The start of an argument is like the first break in a dam; stop it before it goes any further.” (Proverbs 17:14 TEV), “Any fool can start arguments;”(Proverbs 20:3 TEV) and “The fool blurts out every angry feeling, but the wise subdues and restrains them.”(Proverbs 29:11 NJB) Jesus advises us “Come to terms with your opponent in good time while you are still on the way to the court with him” (Matthew 5:25 NJB).

4) Seek Counseling

 If we still find that we unable to tame our temper, it may be time to consider seeking, confessing or asking mature Christians or our priests to counsel us. Why do we need our priests to get involved at this time? Because what we have been doing is not working and we need some outside help. What is needed is the objective counsel of a third party who will minister the Word of God. We need mature guides to show us the way.

The Bible tells us, “Where there is no counsel, the people fall” (Proverbs 11:14 NKJV), “Get good advice and you will succeed” (Proverbs 20:18 TEV) and “Get all the advice you can, and you will succeed; without it you will fail.” (Proverbs 15:22 TEV) So, in order to succeed in taming our temper, we may need the counsel of mature Christians, our priests or appropriate religious writings.

5) Pray to Jesus again and again

To have some success, we have to go to Jesus again and again for help. Sincerely repent our sins of anger. Pray to Jesus to soften our hearts. Daily, pray for forgiveness as we learn to forgive others—“’Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?’ ‘No, not seven times,’ answered Jesus, ‘but seventy times seven’” (Matthew 18:21-22 TEV)—and choose to take active steps “never let the sun set on our anger or else we will give the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:27 NJB)  

We want the best for people when we pray for them. When we truly pray for the grace to forgive people, we will slowly discover that we can no longer remain angry with them. It is most difficult to be angry with an individual and at the same time continue to lift him up in the presence of God. Jesus promises, “And if you have faith, everything you ask for in prayer you will receive.” (Matthew 21:22 NJB)    

All the passages below are taken from Max Lucado’s book “He Still Moves Stones,” published in 1993.

TEN-YEAR-OLD PHINEAS was up before the sun was. He’d scarcely slept the night before. And long before a sound was heard in the house, he was downstairs with his bag packed, ready to climb into the wagon.

The year was 1820. And Phineas was about to see an island. His island. The island promised to him at birth. The day he was born, his grandfather presented newborn Phineas with a deed, a sizable portion of Connecticut land called Ivy Island. And today, for the first time, Phineas was to see it.

Not every boy is born a proprietor. Phineas’s parents were always quick to remind their son of this. They urged him not to forget them when he came of age. Neighbors feared that the young landowner wouldn’t want to play with their children.

Their concerns were legitimate. Phineas was different from his playmates. While they dreamed of dragons and knights, his fantasies were of Ivy Island. Someday he would be lord of his own territory. He’d build a house. Start a farm. Raise cattle. Rule his domain.

When you own an island you feel important.

When you own an island, you want to see it. Phineas had yet to see his. He pleaded with his father to take him to the island and, finally, in the summer of 1820, his father agreed.

Three sleepless nights preceded the expedition. Then, early that morning, Phineas, his father, and a hired hand climbed into the buggy and began the long-anticipated journey. Finally, Phineas would see his land.

He could scarcely sit still. At the top of each hill he would ask, “Are we nearly there? Can I see it from here?” And his father would encourage him to be patient and assure him that they were drawing near.

Finally, his dad pointed north beyond a meadow to a row of tall trees stretching into the sky.

“There’ he said. “There is Ivy Island.”

Phineas was overcome. He jumped from the wagon and dashed through the meadow, leaving his father far behind. He raced to the row of trees into an opening from which Ivy Island was visible.

When he saw the land he stopped. His heart sank.

Ivy Island was five acres of snake-infested marshland. His grand father had called it the most valuable land in Connecticut. But it was worthless. His father had told him it was a generous gift. It wasn’t. It was a joke . . . a cruel joke. As stunned Phineas stared, the father and the hired hand roared with laughter.

Phineas was not the fortunate beneficiary of the family. He was the laughingstock of the family. Grandfather Taylor had played a joke on his heir.

Phineas didn’t laugh. Nor did he forget. That disappointment shaped his life. He, the deceived, made a lifestyle out of deception. The little boy fooled made a career out of fooling people.

He even may have fooled you.

You don’t know him as Phineas. You know him as P.T. You don’t know him as a landowner; you know him as a promoter. You know him as the one who coined the phrase, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” He spent his life proving it. Such was the life of P.T.—P. T. Barnum.

And such is the life of many others, many others who have been told they’d be taken to the Promised Land only to find themselves taken to the swamp.

I shared a ride to the airport this week with a businessman who a decade ago had an income twenty times what he has today. That was before his industry slumped. That was before he went broke.

After last Sunday’s sermon a woman from another town asked what to do with her memories. I asked her what she meant. “I want to go to church, but I was abused by a preacher as a young girl. And now, every time I go to church, I remember.”

A friend tells me that her husband cares more about his golf game than he cares about her.

Even as I was writing, a co-worker stopped by to update me on the lawsuit he has filed against the builder who never finished his house.

Is there anything wrong with these people? No, their desires are healthy. One wants a strong business, another wants fulfilling worship. A husband who’ll honor his promise, a builder who’ll keep his word. Who would fault them for such dreams? Who would blame them for dreaming? Who would have thought their dreams would be crushed?

Certainly they didn’t.

But now they are faced with a decision. What do they do with their disillusionment? What do they do with their broken hearts? We’re not talking inconveniences or hassles. We’re not discussing long lines or red lights or a bad game of tennis. We’re talking heart break. We’re talking about what two friends of Jesus were feeling a couple of days after his death. Their world has tumbled in on them. It’s obvious by the way they walk. Their feet shuffle, their heads hang, their shoulders droop. The seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus must feel like seventy.

As they walk they talk “about everything that had happened” (v. 14). It’s not hard to imagine their words.

“Why did the people turn against him?”

“He could have come down from the cross. Why didn’t he?”

“He just let Pilate push him around.”

“What do we do now?”

As they walk, a stranger comes up behind them. It is Jesus, but they don’t recognize him. Disappointment will do that to you. It will blind you to the very presence of God. Discouragement turns our eyes inward. God could be walking next to us, but despair clouds our vision.

Despair does something else. Not only does it cloud our vision, it hardens our hearts. We get cynical. We get calloused. And when good news comes, we don’t want to accept it for fear of being disappointed again. That’s what happened to these two people.

Later on they say these words:

“And today some women among us amazed us. Early this morning they went to the tomb, but they did not find his body there. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive! So some of our group went to the tomb, too. They found it just as the women said, but they did not see Jesus.” (Luke 24:22—24)

When reading Scripture we can’t always tell in what tone the words were spoken. Sometimes we don’t know if the speaker means to be jubilant or sad or peaceful. This time, however, there is no question about what they’re thinking: As if it’s not bad enough that Jesus was killed, now some grave robber has taken the body and duped some of our friends.

These two followers aren’t about to believe the women. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Cleopas and his friend are putting their hearts in a shell. They won’t take another risk. They won’t be hurt again.

Common reaction—–isn’t it? Been hurt by love? Then don’t love. Had a promise violated? Then don’t trust. Had your heart broken? Then don’t give it away. Do like P. T. Barnum. Settle the score by blaming the world and hardening your heart.

There is a line, a fine line, which once crossed can be fatal. It’s the line between disappointment and anger. Between hurt and hate, between bitterness and blame. If you are nearing that line, let me urge you, don’t cross it. Step back and ask this question: How long am I going to pay for my disappointment? How long am I going to go on nursing my hurt?

At some point you have to move on. At some point you have to heal. At some point you have to let Jesus do for you what he did for these men.

Know what he did? First of all, he came to them. I know we’ve already mentioned that, but it’s worth repeating. He didn’t sit back and cross his arms and say, “Why can’t those two get with the program?” He didn’t complain to the angel and say, “Why won’t they believe the empty tomb? Why are they so hard to please?”

What did he do? He met them at their point of pain. Though death has been destroyed and sin annulled, he has not retired. The resurrected Lord has once again wrapped himself in flesh, put on human clothes, and searched out hurting hearts.

Read carefully their words and see if you can find their hurt:

Jesus said to them, “What are you talking about?”

They said, “About Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet who said and did many powerful things before God and all the people. Our leaders and the leading priests handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. But we were hoping that he would free Israel.” (Luke 24:19—21)

There it is. “But we were hoping. . .” The disciples had hoped Jesus would free Israel. They had hoped he’d kick out the Romans. They’d hoped Pilate would be out and Jesus would be in. But Pilate was still in, and Jesus was dead.

Unfulfilled expectations. God didn’t do what they wanted him to. They knew what they expected of Jesus. They knew what he was supposed to do. They didn’t have to ask him. If Jesus is the Messiah, he won’t sleep in my storm. He won’t ever die. He won’t defy tradition. He’ll do what he is supposed to do.

But that’s not what he did. And aren’t we glad? Aren’t we glad the prayer of Cleopas and his friend went unanswered? Aren’t we glad God didn’t adjust his agenda to fulfill the requests of these two disciples?

They were good disciples. With good hearts. And sincere prayers. They just had the wrong expectations.

When my oldest daughter was about six years old, she and I were having a discussion about my work. It seems she wasn’t too happy with my chosen profession. She wanted me to leave the ministry. “I like you as a preacher,” she explained. “I just really wish you sold snow cones.”

An honest request from a pure heart. It made sense to her that the happiest people in the world were the men who drove the snow-cone trucks. You play music. You sell goodies. You make kids happy. What more could you want? (Come to think about it, she may have a point. I could get a loan, buy a truck and. . . Naw, I’d eat too much.)

I heard her request, but I didn’t heed it. Why? Because I knew better. I know what I’m called to do and what I need to do. The fact is I know more about life than she does.

And the point is, God knows more about life than we do.

People wanted him to redeem Israel, but he knew better. He would rather his people be temporarily oppressed than eternally lost. When forced to choose between battling Pilate and battling Satan, he chose the battle we couldn’t win. He said no to what they wanted and yes to what they needed. He said no to a liberated Israel and yes to a liberated humanity.

And once again, aren’t we glad he did? And aren’t we glad he does?

Now be honest. Are we glad he says no to what we want and yes to what we need? Not always. If we ask for a new marriage, and he says honor the one you’ve got, we aren’t happy. If we ask for healing, and he says learn through the pain, we aren’t happy. If we ask for more money, and he says treasure the unseen, we aren’t always happy.

When God doesn’t do what we want, it’s not easy. Never has been. Never will be. But faith is the conviction that God knows more than we do about this life and he will get us through it.

Remember, disappointment is caused by unmet expectations.

Disappointment is cured by revamped expectations.

I like that story about the fellow who went to the pet store in search of a singing parakeet. Seems he was a bachelor and his house was too quiet. The store owner had just the bird for him, so the man bought it. The next day the bachelor came home from work to a house full of music. He went to the cage to feed the bird and noticed for the first time that the parakeet had only one leg.

He felt cheated that he’d been sold a one-legged bird, so he called and complained.

“What do you want,” the store owner responded, “a bird who can sing or a bird who can dance?”

Good question for times of disappointment. What do we want? That’s what Jesus asks the disciples. What do you want? Do you want temporary freedom—–or eternal freedom? Jesus sets about the task of restructuring their expectations.

You know what he did? He told them the story. Not just any story. He told them the story of God and God’s plan for people. “Then starting with what Moses and all the prophets had said about him, Jesus began to explain everything that had been written about himself in the Scriptures” (v. 27).

Fascinating. Jesus’ cure for the broken heart is the story of God. He started with Moses and finished with himself. Why did he do that? Why did he retell the ancient tale? Why did he go all the way back two thousand years to the story of Moses? I think I know the reason. I know because what they heard is what we all need to hear when we are disappointed.

We need to hear that God is still in control. We need to hear that it’s not over until he says so. We need to hear that life’s mishaps and tragedies are not a reason to bail out. They are simply a reason to sit tight.

Corrie ten Boom used to say, “When the train goes through a tunnel and the world gets dark, do you jump out? Of course not. You sit still and trust the engineer to get you through.”

Why did Jesus tell the story? So we’d know the engineer still controls the train.

The way to deal with discouragement? The cure for disappointment? Go back to the story. Read it again and again. Be reminded that you aren’t the first person to weep. And you aren’t the first person to be helped.

Read the story and remember, their story is yours!

The challenge too great? Read the story. That’s you crossing the Red Sea with Moses.

Too many worries? Read the story. That’s you receiving heavenly food with the Israelites.

Your wounds too deep? Read the story. That’s you, Joseph, for giving your brothers for betraying you.

Your enemies too mighty? Read the story. That’s you marching with Jehoshaphat into a battle already won.

Your disappointments too heavy? Read the story of the Emmaus-bound disciples. The Savior they thought was dead now walked beside them. He entered their house and sat at their table. And something happened in their hearts. “It felt like a fire burning in us when Jesus talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us” (v. 31).

Next time you’re disappointed, don’t panic. Don’t jump out. Don’t give up. Just be patient and let God remind you he’s still in control. It ain’t over till it’s over.(74-82)

All the passages below are taken from the book, “Our Lady says: Love People” by Rev. Albert Joseph Mary Shamon.

“Love is always patient and kind;

1ove is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth.

It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NJB)

Paul’s masterful description of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is divided into three parts.

In the first part, he describes what love is. It is patient. It is kind.

In the second part, he lists what love is not. It is (1) not jealous. It is (2) not pompous, (3) nor inflated, (4) nor rude, (5) nor self-seeking, (6) nor quick-tempered. It does (7) not brood over injuries, (8) nor rejoice over wrong doing, but rejoices with the truth.

In the third part, Paul describes what is the permanent attitude of love, what it does all the time. The Greek word panta is translated as a noun “all things” and as the object of the verbs bears, believes, hopes and endures. I think panta is better translated as an adverb “continually,” “all the time.”

Love makes a hollow square. It conquers the enemies of love on all four sides, “all the time.” “There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.”

1. “LOVE BEARS ALL THINGS.”

The Greek word (stegei) might be translated as “covers” instead of “bears.” In the presence of the faults of others, love puts her finger to her lips. When a hurtful particle lodges on the shell of an oyster, and it cannot eject it, the oyster covers the intruder with a precious substance extracted from its very life and turns the intruder into a beautiful pearl. A pearl is the crystallized tear of an oyster. Error hates truth; selfishness hates love; but love always puts a kind construction even on hate.

Why does love do this? Because we are called “to be conformed to the image” of the Son of God (Rom. 8:29), “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps” (1 Peter 2:21). “He was spurned. . . a man of suffering. . . though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter. . . he was silent” (Isaiah 53:3, 7). And when He did open His mouth, it was to excuse those who had crucified Him: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke. 23:34).

True love puts up with a lot from people, just as God does. It bears hurts in silence, conceals injuries as much as possible. True love tends to see good in everyone and feels that in the end good will triumph over evil. This trust springs from hope, a hope based on the promises of God. “Those who hope in the Lord shall never be put to shame.”

I think it was Rollo May who said that if we wish to change a person, we must accept him as he is and if we wish to change ourselves we must accept ourselves as we are. God does that, doesn’t He? So must we.

Therefore, St. James says, “Do not, my brothers, speak ill of one another” (James 4:11). James condemns fault finding. A censorious attitude means one is paying too much attention to the conduct of others. But worse, it can mean paying too much attention, not in order to help, but in order to criticize. This lumps one in with the devil, for it is written of him that he is “the accuser of our brothers” (Revelations 12:10).

2. “LOVE BELIEVES ALL THINGS.”

Love believes in people all the time. People are always asking us to believe in them, to trust them. “Trust me,” says the politician, the salesman, the promoter. Once I used to do my banking in a Trust Company. I did not know whether I was supposed to trust them or they were supposed to trust me. No matter, trust is vital not only to business, but also to life itself.

A house caught fire one night. The parents and children ran outside. A 5-year-old, however, eluded the parents and was trapped on the second story. The father saw the child in the window surrounded by smoke. He yelled, “Jump, I’ll catch you!” But the child cried out, “Daddy, I can’t see you.” The father answered, “That’s all right, I can see you. Jump!”

So love trusts in people even though it cannot see the results. It believes in them, because it sees the over arching goodness of God Who can bring good out of evil and that, despite appearances, His purpose will be accomplished.

Such belief in people brings out the best in them. Fr. Flannigan, the founder of Boystown, always said, “There is no such thing as a bad boy.” Don Bosco believed you could prevent a boy from becoming bad by loving him. Both of them worked wonders for the youth of America and Italy. When Gov. Al Smith was looking for a warden to bring order to Sing Sing Prison, he picked Lawes. When Lawes got the summons to the Governor’s office, Lawes said he was going to turn down the almost impossible task until Smith said to him, “Lawes, I picked you, be cause I believe in you. I know you are the man who can do the job.” Lawes said that that vote of confidence in him did the trick. He went to Sing Sing to become one of its finest wardens.

John Ruskin lamented: “If my parents would only love me less and trust me more.”

Trust is believing in another.

3. “LOVE HOPES ALL THINGS.”

Love hopes even for the impossible for others, because the lover knows nothing is impossible for the Lord. Love hopes, therefore, first in the Lord. “They that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength like the eagle. . . shall run. . . shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). “Cursed is the man that trusteth man” (Jeremiah 18:5).

To Cromwell Cardinal Wolsley, when stripped of all office by Henry VIII, complained: “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I had served my king, he would not now in my old age have left me naked to my enemies.”  Wolsley had forgotten the words of the Psalmist: “Put not your trust in princes” (Psalms 114:2).

Hope in the Lord begets hope for others. Love does not give up on people, or give in to evil no matter how great, just as Jesus never gave up on people. This demands constant and ardent prayer. We can do nothing without God; but with God, there is nothing we cannot do or hope for.

The family hopes and prays that the alcoholic or the drug addict will be cured; the wife beaten or the child abused hopes and prays that the most hardened sinner will eventually turn to the Lord. Like the Good Samaritan, love sees life and hope even in one half-dead. Love believes, in the words of Cervantes, “Where there is life, there is hope.”

4. “LOVE ENDURES ALL THINGS.”

The Greek verb Paul uses here for “endure” is huypomenein, which means not just to bear with people on occasion, once in a while, but to put up with people always, even to the very end of their lives, despite all their aberrations and vagaries. Just as a good mother never gives up on her wayward child, so love is steadfast, it holds on in moments and days and even years—–confident that somehow, someway, in God’s good time all will be well in the end.

Thus when love has no evidence to the contrary, it bears with people; believes the best about them; hopes for the best for them; and courageously endures, waits—–never gives up on them. Come what may, love is undismayed; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things—–all the time!

*    *    *

Love, as Paul has portrayed it in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, has been exemplified, realized, and incarnated in the life of Jesus.

In Jesus, love walked the earth. For in Him patience and kindness met. Never was He jealous, pompous, inflated, rude. Never did He seek His own interests. Never was He quick-tempered, nor one to brood over injuries. He rejoiced not over wrongdoing, but with the truth. He bore every sling and arrow aimed at Himself. He believed in people always, hoped for them continually and endured all their shortcomings, confident that to those who love God all things would work together unto good in the end.

His invitation still stands;

“Come, follow me. Walk in love!”