Walk With A Stranger

Cleopas and one of the other disciples were making the 6-mile trek from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the afternoon of Jesus' resurrection.   They were consumed in conversation, likely focusing on what Jesus' death would mean for their small community of followers. They were joined by a stranger who had seemingly avoided all the commotion surrounding Jesus' crucifixion three days earlier and his recent resurrection.  The disciples welcomed the stranger to their conversation, and the stranger began interpreting all the scriptures, prophesying the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.   The stranger completed the trip to Emmaus with the disciples, but intended to continue his journey from there.  The disciples were fascinated by him and exclaimed, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." The stranger agreed, and as he broke the bread that evening, the disciples recognized him as Jesus for the first time.  And He immediately disappeared.

I have been thinking about how the disciples' walk with Jesus that day compares to my own.  Sometimes, I am so overwhelmed by what is going on in the world, with my family and friends or in my work, that I don't even recognize Jesus when He is standing right beside me.  Spending time reading about Him, or listening to stories about Him, can help me move in the right direction, but He more completely reveals Himself to me only when I look into His face, ask Him to "stay with me," and acknowledge that His body was broken for me.  While I may not able to look into the physical face of Jesus as those two disciples did, His presence is completely available to me and all who seek Him.

To Tell The Truth

I hope many of you made it to church last Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.  And if you made it, I hope you were inspired by the words spoken, the music sung, and the people you saw there.   I was.  I also know a lot of churches intentionally direct their messages, especially on Easter, toward people who haven't attended church in a while, or perhaps have never attended, and I completely understand their motives and respect their approach.  Christianity is based on truth and grace.  It's not about 50/50 or some other percentage.  Jesus was 100% truth and 100% grace.   And we are called to the same.  On Easter Sunday, grace frequently gets top billing.   I was looking for a little post-Easter inspiration, and I found this message from one of the greatest evangelists of all time, Billy Graham.  Take 10 minutes to bask in the words from this great follower of Jesus.

Really Old Text Messages

This week is the most sacred of weeks for followers of Jesus.  This is the week that we celebrate Jesus' resurrection.  His resurrection is the basis for all that we believe. Except for brief instances where people appear dead and are then resuscitated, this is the only time in history this has happened - if you believe the ancient texts we have are true.  John Dickson has a PhD in ancient history and is currently serving as a professor at Wheaton College.  I watched an interview with him this week that discusses the reliability of the texts.  Here are my main takeaways:

• Most other major religions have ancient texts, which are revelations passed down to prophets from their gods.  Christianity is the only religion whose texts are based on events claimed to have occurred historically.
• The Bible wasn't assembled for centuries after the time of Jesus, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and James all wrote separate accounts of Jesus's life and death that align surprisingly well.  The texts survived for hundreds of years before assembly, which corroborates their authenticity.
• Ancient texts written closer to the reported events tend to have more credibility.  Texts about other religious and political leaders of that time were written from 80-350 years after the events occurred.  Texts about Jesus were written 10-60 years after his death.
• 99% of ancient writings are missing.  We know this because of the references to them in the 1% that we do have.  Therefore, the Bible referencing events not mentioned elsewhere doesn't mean those events failed to happen.
• Four complete manuscripts, 340 substantial manuscripts, and over 4,000 New Testament fragments have been discovered, dispersed across a vast geographical region.   This is despite political leaders doing everything they could to destroy any manuscripts they found.
• Recent architectural findings support the details described in the Bible.  While Jesus spoke Aramaic, most of the manuscripts are in Greek.  Many of the Jewish architectural finds have Greek inscriptions indicating that many Jews of that time spoke and wrote in Aramaic and Greek.
• Almost all ancient manuscripts were written by the elites of their time.   Christian manuscripts are the only ones written by common men to survive.  Their only reasonable reason for survival is that they are true.

I absolutely love that very smart people have committed their lives to finding and reporting the facts above.  But the evidence for Christ that is most meaningful to me is seeing how believing in Him has changed me and continues to change me every day.  I pray the same for you.

Happy Easter.

Click here to see the complete interview with visual aids.