“Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all. Amen, and come Lord Jesus.” Frederick Bouchner
Looking back, it feels to me as if I was born to believe. Born with a faith that God exists. A faith that God sent his son Jesus to be my friend. That is it, in all it’s simplicity.
I am not saying that I have never doubted. In spite of all the moments and encounters, revelations and visions, I have still thought ‘what if it is all a myth.’ ‘What if it’s all in my head.’
But the very next thought is this.
I would rather have lived and believed than not to have believed at all.
The one thing that we are all absolutely certain of, is that we will all die and our lives on this earth will categorically end.
What happens next is what is debatable.
So surely it makes most sense to choose to believe.
If you believe, it means that you can live this life with the fullness of love and joy and peace in your heart and when you die, you have the peaceful assurance that you will meet the Lord.
Alternatively, if you choose ‘not to believe’ , it would that you live a good life or a not so good life, and then you die. And what if you discover then, that there is a heaven and a God who doesn’t know you, because you chose not to know him.
How can you possibly loose by choosing to believe?
Sometimes, I get overwhelmed by the sorrow that the Lord feels when a person chooses not to know him. I get an ache in the pit of my stomach when I think of how beautifully and wonderfully you have been made. How your creator longs to know you and yet you choose to ignore his advances. To not believe, means that you rob him of the opportunity to share his blessing with you. And you rob yourself of the opportunity to share your precious life with him.
But as I have grown older and wiser, I have learned that there are always three truths.
There is ‘My Truth’
My faith is my truth.
There is ‘Your Truth”
What you believe is your truth.
And there is ‘The Truth’
The written truth that we find in Biblical and also non-Biblical writings.
It is ‘The Truth’ that I want to write about today.
We are fast approaching the celebration of Easter. This is one of the most prominent observances in the Christian calendar because this is the crux of the whole story. A king crucified. Death on a cross. To reconcile man to God. Risen from the dead. Victory is won.
Man can hold on to this truth or discard it.
I live my life by it.
I celebrate it.
I am blessed because I believe it.
But let us take a step back. How can we, as believers and non-believers actually know that Jesus was born and later crucified? That Jesus was and is the Christ, the son of God?
The bible says in John 8:31-32:
“If you continue to accept and obey my teaching, you are really my followers. 32 You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Ok, so are there any accounts outside of the bible that testify to the fact that Jesus was born and also crucified?
Yes, Yes and Yes!!!
It is encouraging to know that the Gospels, (Matthew, Mark Luke and John) which are the eyewitness accounts of Jesus, are not the only ancient reports of Jesus. There are also non-Christian accounts of Jesus from the late 1st to the 5th Century.
Here is a condensed excerpt from ‘Cold Case Christianity’ which gives us an insight into both Biblical and non-Biblical writings. If you want to read the full story, go to www.coldcasechristianity.com
By way of introduction, we need to remember that in any situation, two people can examine the same event (or even the same historical character) and disagree about what they have seen.
This is the ‘Your Truth and My Truth scenario’.
Here are two fairly recent examples of events that have been interpreted in a variety of ways. The first is the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The entire event was captured on video tape. There were hundreds of eyewitnesses. The tapes were watched over and over again. Yet, in the midst of such a robust eyewitness record, people still argue to this day about what they saw and what actually happened. Was it a lone shooter or an elaborate conspiracy? The second is the attack on the World Trade Center. Most of us either saw the attack live on television or watched the video for months afterward. But the event is still interpreted in a variety of ways. Was this the act of international terrorists or an elaborate governmental conspiracy? These are two well documented historical events with a rich set of evidences. Yet in spite of this, both events have been interpreted in a variety of ways.
It shouldn’t surprise us then to find that the historical records of Jesus Christ also experience the same type of scrutiny and diverse interpretation.
But the main question remains the main question …. “Did Jesus truly live, minister, die and rise from the grave as the Gospels record, or was it an elaborate conspiracy?”
One thing we know about the Kennedy assassination and the World Trade Center attack: regardless of interpretation, there were eyewitnesses to the events, and the events did truly occur.
In a similar manner, the ancient evidence related to Jesus reveals that there were eyewitnesses and that He did exist in history.
In fact, the ancient non-Christian interpretations (and critical commentaries) of the Gospel accounts actually serve to strengthen the core claims of the New Testament.
Adverse Non-Biblical Pagan Accounts Here are three ancient classical accounts of Jesus from pagan, non-Christian sources. These accounts are generally hostile to Christianity; some ancient authors even denied the miraculous nature of Jesus and the events surrounding His life:
Thallus (52AD) Thallus is perhaps the earliest secular writer to mention Jesus and he is so ancient that his writings don’t even exist anymore. But Julius Africanus, writing around 221AD quotes Thallus who previously tried to explain away the darkness occurring at Jesus’ crucifixion:
“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)
From this account, we can conclude that Jesus lived, He was crucified, and there was an earthquake and darkness at the point of His crucifixion.
Tacitus (56-120AD) Cornelius Tacitus was known for his analysis and examination of historical documents and is among the most trusted of ancient historians. He was a senator under Emperor Vespasian and was also proconsul of Asia. In his “Annals’ of 116AD, he describes Emperor Nero’s response to the great fire in Rome and Nero’s claim that the Christians were to blame:
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.”
In this account, Tacitus confirms several historical elements of the Biblical narrative: Jesus lived in Judea, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and had followers who were persecuted for their faith in Christ.
Celsus (175AD) This is the third hostile, non-Christian account that we will examine together. Celsus was quite antagonistic to the claims of the Gospels, but in his criticism he unknowingly affirmed and reinforced the Biblical authors and their content. His writing is extensive and he alludes to 80 different Biblical quotes, confirming their early appearance in history. In addition, he admits the miracles of Jesus were generally believed in the early 2nd century:
“Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her living by the work of her own hands. His mother had been turned out of doors by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being convicted of adultery [with a soldier named Panthéra (i.32)]. Being thus driven away by her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard. Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing. He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god.”
Celsus admits Jesus was reportedly born of a virgin, but then argues that this supernatural account could not be possible and offers the idea that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a man named Panthera (an idea borrowed from Jews who opposed Jesus at the time). But in writing this account, Celsus does confirm several important claims: Jesus had an earthly father who was a carpenter, possessed unusual magical powers and claimed to be God.
Hostile Non-Biblical Jewish Accounts Let us also have a quick look at the writing of a Jewish theologian who was not at all sympathetic to the Christian cause, in fact his writing was very harsh, critical and even demeaning to Jesus, but it still confirms a lot.
Josephus (37-101AD) Josephus writes about Jesus in his “the Antiquities of the Jews” in 93AD. Josephus was born just four years after the crucifixion. He was a consultant for Jewish rabbis at an early age, became a Galilean military commander by the age of sixteen, and he was an eyewitness to much of what he recorded in the first century A.D. Under the rule of Roman emperor Vespasian, Josephus was allowed to write a history of the Jews. This history includes three passages about Christians, one in which he describes the death of John the Baptist, one in which he mentions the execution of James (and describes him as the brother of Jesus the Christ), and a final passage which describes Jesus as a wise man and the messiah. There is much legitimate controversy about the writing of Josephus, because the first discoveries of his writings are late enough to have been re-written by Christians who were accused of making additions to the text. So to be fair, we’ll examine a scholarly reconstruction stripped of Christian embellishment:
“Now around this time lived Jesus, a wise man. For he was a worker of amazing deeds and was a teacher of people who gladly accept the truth. He won over both many Jews and many Greeks. Pilate, when he heard him accused by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, (but) those who had first loved him did not cease (doing so). To this day the tribe of Christians named after him has not disappeared”
There are many other ancient versions of Josephus’ writing which are even more explicit about the nature of Jesus’ miracles, life and his status as the Christ, but let’s take this conservative version and see what we can learn. From this text, we can conclude: Jesus lived in Palestine, was a wise man and a teacher, worked amazing deeds, was accused by the Jews, crucified under Pilate and had followers called Christians.
And that is it in summery. What we can understand from these four hostile accounts is that although they were written by people who certainly did not believe in Jesus ministry, they do still verify that he walked the earth, he had many followers, he had a great impact on the Jewish people and he was later crucified.
Let us now read the crucifixion of Jesus in the light of the truth in which it is written – by a man who walked with Jesus and saw his friend and mentor being unjustly crucified.
May Jesus unlock this life-changing truth in your hearts so that you can hold onto it forever.
Luke 23:44-47 (Living Bible)
The Death of Jesus
By now it was noon and darkness fell across the whole land for three hours until it was three o’clock. The light from the sun was gone – and suddenly the thick veil hanging in the temple split apart.
The Jesus shouted, “Father I commit my spirit to you.” And with these words he died.
When the captain of the Roman military unit handling the executions saw what had happened, he was stricken with awe before God and said “Surely this man was innocent