Thursday Morning Follow-up

Over the past two years I've had more than a handful of people ask me, "You've been going to church, no kidding? You? You're probably the last person I woulda thought ..."

Then they wanna know the reason why. They wanna know what's different.

It's not about New Spring, even though I love the worship service, think the band rocks hard! and consider the staff and volunteers I've met more like family than friends (we get to spend eternity together in the same neighborhood, after all).

It's not about the big guy doing the preaching, either (though he's got a God-given knack for finding all the stress cracks in your spiritual foundation, and teaching how only Holy Spirit-brand concrete can handle the repairs and give your soul's house an everlasting rennovation).

What made the difference for me was understanding this: either Christ's death and resurrection was absolutely, literally 100% true ... or Christianity is nothing more than another bogus, alternative man-made religion. Faith in Jesus Christ can't work any other way.

Christianity falls apart without Christ's literal death and resurrection ... and that means the resurrection cannot be accepted as a metaphor, a fairy tale or muddled wishful-thinking. Folks, it either literally happened exactly as the Gospels describe or we might as well start worshipping cows or space aliens or an old pair of socks ... because it won't make any difference.

If God could literally bring a man back to life then Christ's resurrection stands alone, not even the moon landing comes in a close second, as the most important and critical event in all of human history ... and for crying out loud isn't it time we "got the point" and started living as though the resurrection was as real and proved God's word is true as if we'd witnessed it first hand?

Don't bother arguing that the Gospels were written several decades later, or that the Gospels was painstakingly manufactured by candlelight around 200 AD in the Vatican basement by a bunch of cardinals who'd been ordered to fabricate or re-write the Gospels to consolidate the church's power and oppress people the Pope didn't like.

I've already tried those leftovers, and can promise you they all stink the same.

You'll find out "The Vatican Did It" theory won't wash as soon as you start reading Matthew and discover that Christ's message of forgiveness through God's love amounts to a revolution so unlike any man-made religion, and so clearly describes God's purpose all the way through Revelation, that no group of men could've created a radical, consistent, and life-changing fairy tale anything like it.

What gets to me personally is that if the disciples were lying, if they'd had a reason to steal Christ's body and make up a resurrection lie, maybe to keep the denari rolling in as they traveled around living like peasants, preaching forgiveness through God's grace (or maybe to save face after being deceived by Jesus and the lies he told about being God's Son for the past three years), then when the terrible persecutions started all they had to do to avoid torture and a horrible death was deny the whole thing, show the Romans where Christ's body was hidden, and start telling the truth.

But they were already telling the truth of what they'd seen, and were martyred without recanting. Not even one time.

If you still have doubts about the Gospels being a fabricated fiction, remember that the New Testament would've had to have been made-up and written down not by a single person but by a committee ... and committees struggle when it comes to deciding where's the best place to hang a new traffic light, or what color to paint the church's bathroom walls.

People don't like hearing Jesus Christ is the only way, and somehow feel more comfortable believing that "all religions are the same" or "all paths ultimately lead to salvation." But that argument overlooks folks like me, who get lost at Wal-Mart or forget the church office's phone number, or have to keep checking a web page to find out what time the 11:30 service starts.

The "emergent church" can argue from now till the Rapture that "each person is free to find their own way" but if that's true then there's gonna be lots of people like me spending eternity wandering around the mall parking lot trying to remember where they parked their car.

Believing that God literally raised Jesus from the dead seems like a tall order for lots of people who're too busy to spend much time thinking about eternity, especially the ones who got a dose of Theology 101 back in college. Maybe because they're uncomfortable with the dramatic changes that would re-prioritize their lives, or because they'd have to toss the latest version of politically-correct theology out the window.

No one enjoys finding out they've been living according to a bad decision based on erroneous assumptions ... and had somehow been ignoring what was obvious all along. All religions are not the same. All paths do not lead to salvation and we are not free to determine the quickest or easist way to get there.

Folks, living in the 21st century does not entitle us to ignore the truth and re-write the rules.

Either Christ's resurrection was real or it wasn't. And if it wasn't real then we can forget about all the assortment of religions bragging that theirs is the "one true way" and prance off into eternity on our own merry way without missing a step.

But if the resurrection is real then God's word is also true. And that means the joy of knowng Christ is also real.

The fact of Christ's death and literal resurrection proves that the gift of eternal life is available through Grace to all who ask Christ into their lives ... and also proves that every man-made religion, no matter what they might claim, leads to a dead end that has nothing to do with Heaven.