A couple of
weeks ago, on a rainy Saturday, I watched a you-tube presentation of The First
Thousand Years of Christianity which investigates the beginnings of
Christianity and including the influence of numerous facts, especial of the
apostle Paul in spreading the message of Christ. It seems to me that the story
of Christ has endured for innumerable reasons: because in the fullness of time
God indeed sent his Son; because knowingly Jesus walked to the Cross and into
the hands of those who didn't know what they were doing; because something
really happened after His body was laid in the tomb; and because with great
power and with God’s Spirit, the apostles continued to testify of the events
they saw. The narrators noted his
fascination with the historical figure, commenting that if not for the voice of
Paul, it is "unlikely that the movement Jesus founded would have survived beyond the first century." Yet
of the resurrection of Christ he also noted, "Something must have
happened, otherwise it's hard to explain how Jesus' story endured for so
long."
I am again amazed at what can stimulate my "gone wild" investigations!
The three hour documentary only struck the match in wondering and finding answers
to the question as to why the story of Christ has endured 2000 years. Is it only
because God ordained it from the beginning? Has it survived through the
centuries because of effective speakers in antiquity? Has it endured, as
Sigmund Freud argued, because it is a story that fulfills wishes, or as
Friedrich Nietzsche attested, because it masks and medicates humans disgust of
life? Has the story of Christ endured because something really happened after
Jesus's body was taken down from the cross or has it been due only to clever marketing
of ardent followers?
I live in an age where religion is examined with the goal of finding a
religion, or a combination of religions, that best suits ones' life and lifestyle.
I'm noticing, more than ever before (not so much with the Millennial generation but technology) the Silent, Baby Boomers and Gen-X generations are
intrigued by characters in history like Jesus and Paul, Buddha and Gandhi. We
look at their lives and rightly determine their influence in history—the
radical life and message of Christ, the fervor with which Paul spread the story
of Christianity, the passion of Buddha, the social awareness of Gandhi. But far
too often, fascination stops there, comfortably and confidently keeping the
events of history at a distance or mingling them all together as one and the
same.
C.S. Lewis wrote often of "the great cataract of nonsense" that
blinds us to knowledge of earlier times and keeps us content with history in
pieces. He was talking about the common tendency to treat the voices of history
with a certain level of incredulity and inferiority—even if with a pleasant
curiosity all the same. Elsewhere, he called it chronological snobbery, a tendency to concern
oneself primarily with present sources while dissecting history as we please.
Yet to do so, warned Lewis, is to walk unaware of the cataracts through which
we see the world today. Far better is the mind that truly considers the past,
allowing its lessons to interact with the army of voices that battle for our
allegiance. For a person who has lived thoroughly in many eras is far less
likely to be deceived by the errors of his or her own age.
I'm thinking that I need to be more wary, along with among other things, of
assuming that the followers of Christ thought resurrection a reasonable
phenomenon or miracles a natural occurrence. They didn't. Investigating the
life of Paul, I have been asking why a once fearful persecutor of Christ's
followers was suddenly willing to die for the story he carried around the
world, testifying to this very event that split history. Investigating the
enduring story of Christ, I ask why the once timid and frightened disciples
were abruptly transformed into bold witnesses. What happened that led thousands
of Jews and many others to dramatically change directions in life and in
lifestyle? I'm thinking that something incredible happened is not a difficult
conclusion at which to arrive. It would take a much greater faith to conclude
otherwise.
A very old, western friend of mine has always been fond of saying that truth is
something a person can hang their hat on. Even as I sometimes struggle to see it at
times, his words communicate, I think, a reality Jesus's disciples knew well.
The resurrection was shocking in its real-ness; it was an event they found
dependable and enduring. It was not for them like it is for most, today, as the
latest scandal that grabs one's curiosity and passes with the next big thing.
It is solid and it is real. The disciples and the apostle Paul were transformed
by seeing Jesus alive again—a phenomenon that would be just as unthinkable to
ancient minds as it would be to most today. In fact, even the most hesitant
among them, and the most unlikely of followers, found the resurrected Christ an
irrefutable reality. Comfort was irrelevant, it went far beyond curiosity, and
personal preference was not a consideration. They could not deny who stood in
front of them. Jesus was alive. And they went to their deaths talking about it.
It seems to me that the story of Christ has endured for innumerable reasons:
because in the fullness of time God indeed sent his Son; because knowingly
Jesus walked to the Cross and into the hands of those who didn't know what they
were doing; because something really happened after his body was laid in the
tomb; and because with great power and with God’s Spirit, the apostles continued
to testify of the events they saw. What if the story of Christ remains today
simply because it is true?
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