You've Got to be "Swooning" Me

I heard a buzzing sound near the window in my office this morning and saw that it was a bee.  I am very allergic to bees.  If I get stung, I have to go right to the ER for a steroid injection.  Since I don’t like to go to the ER for steroid injections, I closed the blinds, trapping the bee between them and the window.  I listened for the buzz and then crushed the bee between my blinds and the window with a very heavy book.  The bee fell down to the window sill, still moving and buzzing a bit.  So I swept him to the ground and smashed him with the book again.  Then I picked him up with a wad of toilet paper and flushed him down the toilet.  Then I flushed again just in case.  I’m fairly certain that by the end of all of that, the bee was as dead as a bee gets. There is no way the bee could have survived that.

This is Easter week, the most sacred holiday in Christianity, and the basis of our faith.  Jesus died for our sins and was raised from the dead, and if we believe in Him for our salvation, we too will be raised to eternal life with Him.  That’s the significance of Easter.  But before there could be an Easter resurrection, Jesus had to have been killed and then buried.  There is no resurrection without His death and burial.

Yet amazingly, in spite of all that was done to Jesus, there are some who argue that Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead because He didn’t actually die on the cross.  Oh yes, they argue, He was beaten beyond recognition, scourged, forced to wear a crown of thorns and carry His cross to the place of crucifixion. He was nailed to a cross, hung there for 6 hours to the very limit of human endurance, was declared dead by the centurion, and stabbed in the heart with a spear just for good measure.  Then He was wrapped in linens and put in a cold dark tomb.  And yet somehow He survived that.  Between Friday night when He was buried and Sunday morning, so the argument goes, the cool air in the tomb combined with a day of rest resuscitated Him.  He was able to recover, wiggle out of His grave clothes, roll the massive stone away, and exit the tomb. He did all of this with feet and wrists that would not have worked because the crucifixion spikes would have severed the nerves in his wrists and feet.  To top it off, He was able to escape the notice of the Roman guards who were stationed at the tomb for the very purpose of guarding the body, under the penalty of death if they failed. 

This is known as the SWOON theory. Its proponents say that medical knowledge at the time was not what it is today, so they all mistakenly believed that He was dead.  He didn’t actually die, he only “swooned”, meaning that He fell unconscious. I find this a whole lot harder to believe than the resurrection, but such is the length that some will go to deny a historical fact.  When I was investigating the Christian faith to decide whether I would believe the claims of Jesus, the fact that the tomb was empty was a tipping point. I looked for an alternate explanation.  If the Swoon theory was the best argument that critics of the resurrection could make, then arguments against the resurrection are extremely weak.  When Jesus was laid in the tomb, He was dead. There is no way Jesus survived what He endured.  

Christianity is a religion based on faith, but it’s also a religion based on facts. You need some facts to have faith.  Paul said, in 1 Cor. 15:16-20, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”  Paul should know.  While looking for Christians to arrest, he saw the risen Jesus Himself.  Then he went around for the next 30 years preaching the gospel, and suffering beatings, whippings, torture, stoning, shipwreck, and finally martyrdom for his trouble.  The only explanation for Paul’s changed life is that he saw the risen Lord. That bee I killed did not come back to life.  Jesus did.  The evidence is too compelling to deny.  If you struggle with belief, investigate the facts for yourself, and see if they lead you to faith.

A Different Kind of Selection Show

Many of you know that I am a big sports fan.  I love college basketball and I am especially passionate about my North Carolina Tarheels.  This past weekend, the Texas A&M Aggies thoroughly thumped my Heels and knocked them out of the tournament.  I was hoping that they might repeat as champions, but it was not to be.  This got me to thinking…

The college basketball season is a four-month long series of games that teams play in order to build up their resume. Their hope is that by the end of the regular season in March, they will have won enough games and beaten enough quality opponents, so that the NCAA Tournament selection committee will invite them to be in the field of 68 teams that participate in the tournament.  Every year there are a number of teams who are “on the bubble.”  That means that the team’s resume is not too strong either because it’s record is not so good, or they haven’t beaten many quality opponents, or they lost to some bad teams.  Bubble teams are in danger of not being selected by the committee and can find themselves on the outside looking in.  You don’t want to be a “bubble team” and leave your fate to the judgment of a fickle and fallible committee.  You want to be sure to win your way into the tournament.

The teams that do get into the tournament are “seeded” according to the strength of the season they had.  The best teams are seeded number 1.  The weakest teams in the field are seeded 16.   It’s a single elimination format so once you lose, you are out.  You have to win 6 games in a row to win the tournament and only one team will do it.  One by one, teams are eliminated until the 63^rd and final game of the tournament, when only one team is left standing.  That team has won 6 games in a row against the toughest competition possible and is handed the trophy.  It’s a completely idolatrous and works based religion.  You have to work to get in and you have to work to stay in, and in the end, only one has done enough work to claim the idol.  Every year I watch the Tournament selection show with great interest and anticipation, to see where my Heels are seeded and who they will have to play. 

By comparison, Christianity has no “selection show.”  To be “selected” into Christianity requires no work. We don’t “earn” our way in. (Eph. 2:8-9) We don’t have to “beat anyone” to get in, or have a “better resume” than anyone to get into the field.  In fact, we don’t worry about our resume at all.  We rely on Jesus’ resume to get in. Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. All we need to do is to believe that and we are “in the field.” There are no people who are “on the bubble.”  We either believe and are in the field or we don’t believe and we do not make the field.  The field is not limited to 68.  All are invited (John 3:16), so we don’t have to worry about a fickle and fallible committee.  We have a perfect, holy and just judge who knows our hearts and gladly allows us into heaven on the basis of Jesus’ resume, not ours.

Once we get “in the field”, we don’t have to beat anyone to stay in.  Christ died once to secure our salvation for all eternity (John 10:30).  We cannot lose our salvation so we don’t have to worry about getting knocked out of the field by some top-seeded team like the Calcutta Mother Teresas.  Once in, we don’t chase a gleaming gold trophy that says we are worthy.  We are worthy when we believe.  We get a gleaming gold crown when we enter heaven (Rev. 2:10; James 1:12).  But we don’t seek the crown. Rather, we cast our crowns back to our Savior who earned it for us in the first place (Rev. 4:10). 

Christianity is a grace based religion that seeks only relationship with Christ as its goal.  I will always love the NCAA tournament, but I am less interested once my Heels are knocked out.  I thank God for a salvation so great that it cannot be earned and cannot be lost, even if I have a bad day like my Heels did last weekend.

Fence Posts

I was out for a walk this morning and I walked by a baseball field.  I noticed the fence had posts to support it every 8 feet.  The fence is strongest at the fence post.  One foot away from the post, the fence is a little weaker.  Another foot away from the post and the fence is weaker still.  At eight feet from the last fence post, the fence would collapse without the next fence post to hold it up and support it.

If you have ever pushed a chain link fence at the fence post, you know that you can’t move it.  But between the posts, there is a lot more “give” in the fence.  I used to climb chain link fences all the time as a kid.  It took a lot more than a fence to keep me from trespassing!  If you remember climbing chain link fences as a kid, you always climbed the fence at the post because that’s where the fence is the strongest. 

Looking at that fence somehow got me to thinking about our walk with Christ.  When we are regularly reading our Bibles and spending time with God, we are like the fence by the fence post.  We are strong, supported and even immovable.  The same happens when we spend time with other Christians and are encouraged and built up by them too.  When we fall out of the habit of reading our Bibles and regular prayer; when we are isolated from other believers who encourage us and build us up, we drift from the fence post. We come weak and unsupported. There is “give” in our spiritual lives.

Barnabas was known as an encourager.  In fact, his name means, “Son of Encouragement.”  We will encounter Him as we study the Book of Acts.  In Chapter 4, he was the first one mentioned who sold his property and donated the money to the poor.  In Chapter 9, when all of the apostles were afraid to meet Paul, Barnabas brought Paul to them and vouched for him.  In Chapter 11, Barnabas helped collect money for the poor in Jerusalem and was entrusted to bring it there from Antioch.  In Chapter 15, after John Mark abandoned Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, Barnabas was willing to give him a second chance on the next missionary journey.

Barnabas was like a fence post to the people he encountered.  He encouraged them, supported them, cared for them and gave them second chances after failure.  People were always better off for having been around Barnabas.  He was the kind of guy who made you feel better about yourself and gave you strength to carry on.  We all need Barnabas’s in our lives. Who among us hasn’t had times of spiritual dryness?  Who among us hasn’t suffered from physical or emotional pain at some time.  When you are going through trying times, know who your Barnabas’s are.  

As importantly, we all need to be Barnabas’s to others.  If you look around, you will find so many believers who need encouragement.  There is so much sadness and hopelessness in the world today.  There probably isn’t anyone that you know who isn’t going through something that is causing them fear or anxiety.  Maybe they have drifted from Christ as a result and are like the part of the fence that is far from the post.  They are easily moved and have lots of “give” in their spiritual lives.  I pray that we will look for opportunities to step into people’s lives and support them, give them encouragement.  It’s our job to be the fence post that holds them up when they are weak and to remind them of the promises that exist in Jesus.  Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead.  Our lives are in His hands and as believers, our eternal salvation is secure.  To those fence posts, we must secure ourselves and each other.