21 The real story of Easter.

Easter is a special time of year. Ask children and they will say that Easter is for chocolate eggs, Easter Bunny and maybe the Easter Hat Parade at school. For adults, Easter is a long weekend, a chance to get away. But there is more to Easter than that.

If Easter really happened, if Jesus died and three days later he rose again, if this is a true historic event, then we must see everything a different way. The whole of Christianity hinges on the truth of Easter. Let me explain.

Some TV channels churn out all sorts of unusual theories at Easter time, but the true experts now agree that Jesus was a real historic figure. Professor Edwin Judge, from Macquarie University in Sydney, is accepted as a world expert on ancient history. He said “Some people once believed Jesus was a figure of the imagination. Nobody argues that now, certainly no historians do”. The experts all accept Jesus lived 2000 years ago.

But what about the Easter story?  If on the one hand, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead then the whole meaning of Christianity is a waste of time. But if he has conquered death, our biggest enemy, then we had better listen to him. His words suddenly become very powerful.

Here is a quick summary of events. Jesus was about 30 years old when he began appearing regularly in public. For three years, he travelled around the country of Israel, telling people that the Kingdom of God was near, and he had come to introduce it. The Jewish religious leaders wanted to kill him because he upset their comfortable status. They pressed the Roman authorities to put Jesus through a sham trial. He was arrested and condemned to death by crucifixion, a very cruel and agonising way to die.

When Jesus finally died and was still on the cross, the soldiers struck a spear in his side. This produced something very unusual.  A mixture of blood and water came out. This was seen as a sure sign that he was dead. The Romans allowed his friends to bury Jesus in a limestone cave, already prepared as a tomb for somebody else. They rolled a big stone across the entrance and posted a guard to stop anybody from stealing the body. They did this because Jesus was on the public record as saying he would rise again on the third day.

Three days later, the entrance was exposed; somehow the stone had been rolled away. The tomb was empty. The guards had fled in disgrace. Jesus then appeared to some of his followers, he had risen from the dead. Over the next few weeks he appeared to more than 500 people.

Many have argued that Jesus didn’t really die, the so called swoon theory, or that his post resurrection appearances were illusions, or that his followers stole his body and buried it elsewhere. None of these theories holds up when the record of evidence is examined.

The written evidence is quite specific and can be tested in the same way that cold case investigations are conducted today. Lee Strobel was an investigative reporter on the Chicago Tribune. J Warner Wallace, was a Californian cold case detective. Both started out to prove Christianity was fake. Both changed their opinions entirely when they carefully examined the evidence.  Both now work to convince others that the resurrection of Jesus is a real historic fact. You can easily find them on your internet search engine.

What can we conclude? The events surrounding the life of Jesus, especially the crucifixion and the resurrection, either happened or they didn’t. We’re not talking about merely issues of personal belief; we’re talking about real events of history, they really happened, which puts everything in a different light.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the strongest proof possible that he was who he claimed to be, God in human flesh.

Why did God send Jesus to earth to die such a cruel death? One can only conclude that the sacrifice of one completely sinless man was necessary for justice; that Jesus died in my place and in your place. But Jesus death is only of benefit if we allow him to be the boss of our lives. If we don’t, then we add insult to injury by turning our backs on such a great sacrifice.

Easter Eggs are a symbol of new life, of new birth. At Easter we give these small gifts as a reminder of the greatest gift of all, when Jesus gave his life that we all can have the chance to live with God forever.

(This is an addition to a series that ran in the Riverine Grazier in 2017-2018).

20 Is our world in a big mess, without hope?

A political leader walks away from his marriage, movie stars use their position to exploit women, bullying on social media is out of control, school Principals face high rates of violence and workplace stress, substance abuse is a huge concern, we have thrown away the true meaning of marriage, we no longer accept long standing and objective moral values. Where is our culture headed?

Do we live in a world where each individual ultimately seeks his own selfish desires and where there is no such thing as ultimate justice, just blind chance? In one of his books, Richard Dawkins the noted atheist, said;

“In a universe of blind physical forces, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference”.

You may well disagree with Dawkins pessimistic view, but his conclusion is sound if there is no God, if life is only physical and ends when we die.

I am convinced that there really is a good and loving God who cares for His creatures, and that there is an eternal future. Most people in our culture live their lives ignoring this. We may say we believe in God but then we live as if he doesn’t exist. Carefully consider your own beliefs on things raised in the first paragraph of this article.

Over the past months I have presented the Christian view that there is hope, that there really is a God who cares. And there is sound evidence for His existence, both in science and in our own deepest desires.

Yes we have lost our way, we have messed the world up, but God has put a plan in place for anybody to come back to Him and regain meaning and hope and purpose. I have used the term “the Story of Reality” to describe the Christian explanation. 

Dawkins says there is no hope. This state of despair is the way things must be.

Jesus says the world wasn’t always like this, we messed it up, but the problem is fixable. God loves us and has paid a price to make reconciliation possible for those who put their trust in Jesus.

This is the end of this series. I want to leave you with a challenge. Is it time for you to reconnect with God? His owner’s manual is the Bible. Read it. There are free online versions if you don’t have one. God has provided a community of like-minded people to meet with, it is called church; find one where you feel welcome. Or if you like, email me on pcaspo@gmail.com and I am happy to chat.

Peter.

19 Jack’s story - The Leveller

Jack is an elderly grazier with a large property up north. He has been badly treated by the Government and its public servants. He has also been wronged by other landowners. Jack is resigned to the fact that he will never be compensated for his losses. But he would like to see justice applied to those who have wronged him.

When Jack told me the stories of his problems with the Government and difficulties with other land-owners, he took some comfort in what he described as “the Leveller”. He said “the Leveller will get them”. It is true that however you live your life, you will end up in the same situation; death happens to everybody, it levels us all up in the end.

But for Jack there was more to it than the end of life. Jack was also worried that the Leveller would have a score to settle with him. He suspected that after he died, he would have to give an account to the Leveller for all the things done in his life. He took comfort from the levelling that might happen to his persecutors but he was worried that he might also be on the wrong side of the Leveller. He might have his own debt to repay.

I was able to give Jack some really good news, but I’m not sure whether he was willing to take advantage of it. I told him that God was the Leveller and that every living human being was on His wrong side. Our relationship with God was broken because we have all sinned.

And God took that personally. If we cheat on the tax department, if we kick the cat, if we have bad thoughts about somebody, we actually wrong God. We have all sinned. We are all alienated from God.

You may ask 'How can alienation from God be Good News?' It is not; until you hear that God has done something about it. We couldn’t do anything about righting the wrongs we have done against God, because it would be like trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, and that is impossible.

God is love, so in theory He could just forgive our sins, but that wouldn’t be fair. Imagine how Jack would feel if the people who wronged him were let off scot free. As well as love, God is also absolutely fair; He is the source of both love and justice. So how did God deal with our sins and meet the requirements of His love and of His justice?

Here is the Good News that I gave Jack, God did the most amazing thing. He paid the penalty for our sins Himself by sending Jesus to die on the Cross for us. Jesus’ coming to this earth and His death on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem is a real historic event.

But Jesus’ death is only half the story. After he lay in a tomb from Friday till Sunday morning, God brought Jesus back from the dead. And that is good news because it proves God has power over death. Death is no longer the final enemy. Death is not the Leveller, God is. God determines where we go after death, those who are His followers to live with Him forever, the rest to eternally lonely and painful isolation.

What do you need to do to be on the right side of the Leveller?

Admit your sinfulness. Accept God’s offer of forgiveness and decide to become Jesus’ disciple, his obedient follower.

This is both the easiest and the hardest thing to do. Easy because He is God and surely God can be trusted to do what He has promised and look after you. But hard because it involves humbling yourself and letting God control your life.

18 The story of reality – the road to nowhere

If you want to understand our culture, one of the best places is in popular music. The pop song “Road to Nowhere”, first released by Talking Heads in 1985, and recently re-released by others, sums up the true feelings of many.

We're on a ride to nowhere, Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere, We'll take that ride

Maybe you wonder where you are, I don't care
Here is where time is on our side, Take you there, take you there.

The music is upbeat and the lyrics try to be the same, but they really are a message of despair. We are on a road to nowhere.

This song is an accurate reflection of how many people feel today. They try to kid themselves, try to keep busy, to live a whirlwind of good times, fill their lives with noisy distractions, but ultimately, underneath, there is despair.

For all the excitement of new things, of adrenalin rushing experiences, of fantastic opportunities to travel the world, of amazing medical discoveries, and many others, the modern Western world is on a road to nowhere.

I have described the Christian Story of Reality in the last few articles; it is a coherent and holistic understanding of life. It is in contrast to the most common worldview in our society, a view well expressed in this song, a worldview that says there is nothing beyond the grave, nothing to hope for.

The Christian story of reality tells us that God made a very good world, and the people in it were blessed with a close communion with their maker. But they rebelled and mankind has been in rebellion against God ever since and the world is a mess because of it. It cost God dearly to provide a way to restore the world to the way he designed it. The way back to God is a one-person-at-a-time process, it requires each of us to turn back to let God run our lives.

Instead of a road to nowhere, this puts all who are willing to trust God, on a path to an eternal new heaven and new earth, where peace and harmony will be restored. This will be the case for all who believe. While we wait, we have the confidence of our hope in God. This hope will not disappoint, it will pick us up when we are down, and it shows us the road to take, a road to somewhere much better.

17 The story of reality – part 4. Resurrection

Except for atheism, every belief system I can think of has a final accounting which happens after we die. Our innate sense of justice demands this. We want to believe that those who kill the defenceless and go unpunished in this world will face a final justice. For this reason, Atheism is not a satisfactory system of belief.

Australians are confused about life after death. In my article No 8 in November, I described the common view that all the departed are up there somewhere watching over us. This is really only wishful thinking. It doesn’t satisfy the need for justice. There is no basis for it in the Bible.

The Bible describes a two stage process. When we die, we first exist as souls without bodies in an intermediate state. We don’t know what it will be like to experience this state.

The Bible does say there is an inseparable gulf between this state and earth and it will continue until God decides to end this current world order. Nobody except God knows when that will be.

On that final day of God’s choosing, Jesus will return to earth as judge of all who have ever lived. Everyone will be resurrected from the grave and everyone will stand before Jesus to be judged.

The Bible is clear that Jesus will judge us on the basis of our faith or trust in Jesus as our lord and saviour. Our salvation will not depend on doing good works; rather it is a free gift from God.

Two convicted criminals were executed with Jesus. Before he died, one of them insulted Jesus, but the other told him that Jesus was innocent and said to Jesus “Remember me when you come into your kingdom”. In his own way, he acknowledged Jesus as Lord. Jesus reply was amazing “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

This conversation shows an amazing truth. Jesus forgave this sinful man and accepted him, not because of the good things the man had done, but because the man, by his actions, showed that he trusted Jesus to rescue him.

Those, like the thief, who have trusted Jesus in this world will be given new bodies, similar but different from our present bodies, to live with Jesus forever in a new Heaven and a new Earth. Our new souls and bodies will be changed in many ways, including to be united with God’s spirit in a way that excludes possible rebellion and provides for a beautiful eternal existence.

Those who have turned their backs on God in this world will be sent to a place called Hell. The worst aspect of Hell will be that God will not be there to protect people from the consequences of their own evil actions. Hell has been prepared for the devil and his wicked angels, so it will be a place where these evil beings have free reign. It will be hell to be in their company.

The Bible tells us not to judge others, that is Jesus’ role and we can be sure he is absolutely fair, loving and just. We may think of many hypothetical cases, but one issue is clear. If you have heard and accepted God’s call to follow him, and if you continue living for Him, then you can be assured of the heavenly reward.

16 The story of reality – part 3, Redemption

An old proverb says, “Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever”. The Bible is factual, it is God’s truth, and it is presented as a grand story. My last two articles presented the beginning of that story. Part 1 showed God’s beautiful creation of this world and its inhabitants and part 2 described the fall of humanity, the true account of Adam and Eve turning their backs on God, and of its consequences.

The Bible continues this story. It describes God’s plan to redeem (ie to buy back something that was originally yours) fallen humanity in the most amazing way. It is a story of God’s continuing love but our continuing rebellion.

Part 3 shows God choosing one man, sinful but trusting God, and gradually growing a great nation from his descendants. God chose Abraham and promised that the whole world would be blessed through one of his descendants.

As God began to form the nation of Israel, he gave them laws. The famous Ten Commandments are God’s laws in summary form. These laws, which form the basis of our legal code, were actually given to show God’s people that they couldn’t ever fully keep them. They needed to depend on God, in the manner that Adam and Eve rejected.

To teach them the seriousness of law breaking, God gave them other laws regarding animal sacrifices, indicating that blood must be shed to receive God’s forgiveness. But even animal sacrifices didn’t do that job, because they had to be repeated over and over again.

So because of his great love, God provided the only sacrifice that was good enough; his own perfect Son. Jesus came to earth as a baby, grew and became a man, yet without once ever sinning. In God’s perfect plan, Jesus was arrested, falsely convicted in a sham trial and executed on a Roman cross, the cruellest form of punishment imaginable.

Why? Because that was the only way God’s justice could be met and God could keep his promise to redeem us. Probably the most quoted verse in the Bible states it well:

John 3:16  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Notice this verse has a condition. God’s offer of redemption is ONLY available to those who believe in Jesus. To believe in Jesus involves admitting my own sinfulness, trusting Jesus to forgive me and make me right with God. Then, I must allow God to direct my life, and when I fail, as I doubtless will, again come to him for forgiveness. In short, to live in the manner God originally intended for Adam and Eve.

The story doesn’t end there. After three days, God raised Jesus from the dead, and after a few weeks, God took Jesus back to Heaven. And God promised that all who follow Jesus will join Jesus in a new Heaven and a new earth. This ultimate redemption is explained in the next article. 

15 The story of reality – part 2, the Fall

God created a very good world, but it is not so good now. It is a mixture of good and evil, so what went wrong? The answer is in part 2 of the story of reality. It is all in the first chapters of the Bible.

God makes a beautiful garden for Adam and Eve, where everything is provided and where they can enjoy God’s company. There is one condition, God wants them to trust his moral judgement, so he says don’t eat fruit from one particular tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

But God has an enemy, who enters the garden in the guise of a serpent. He says “you can’t trust God, eat this fruit and you will be like God, you will be able to know between good and evil yourselves. Make your own rules, be independent of God”.

Adam and Eve waver, then they eat the forbidden fruit. They disobey God. This may seem a small thing, but it is a test of trust, and of loyalty. This one decision, this single act of disobedience, changes everything.

They have turned their backs on God, and they quickly discover the consequences.

When God queries them, the blame game starts. Adam blames Eve, she blames the serpent. Their perfect harmony with each other and with God is shattered.

They are now dead to the friendship they once had with God. Their lives are full of suffering and they eventually die.

Because of their rebellion, God throws them out of the garden, and they begin a life where things go wrong. Food production becomes a constant struggle. Work becomes toil as the earth fights back with briars and thorns and natural disasters. Woman struggles to bear children in labour and pain, and clashes with the man who now rules her.

One of their sons kills his brother in cold blood. The disease of sin spreads to the whole community, men boast of their ability to plunder and kill others.

With each generation, human rebellion becomes more dramatic. The darkness spreads. One thoughtless act of sin and self-will has changed the world forever.

You may think eating the forbidden fruit is a myth. I don’t, but even if it is, the reality behind it is by far the best explanation of how a good world got corrupted, how humans are both good and bad, how we need someone to give us hope, someone to rescue us from ourselves. 

To be continued....