There is no Jesus

Well didn't I come up with a classic line on Easter morning in church today that I will forever be reminded of!

Most years on Easter, our church will do a dramatic presentation related to Jesus' death and resurrection. This morning we were watching a drama in church that featured a few disciples and Mary Magdalene. As the drama team came down the aisles to begin, my daughter leaned over to me and asked, "Is Gord [playing] Jesus?" (Gord most often plays Jesus in these dramas). I responded, "No. There IS NO Jesus." My daughter looked at me in feigned shock that I would say such a thing, and now she feels like quitting life and all she's involved in because 'There is no Jesus'. LOL. And she will forever remind me I said that.

We chuckle at that statement because we so strongly believe and trust in Jesus that it's absurd to ever allude to him not existing. And yet at this time of year particularly, there are promotions of books and movies that remind us that there are many who believe there is no Jesus and in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some also believe he never even existed.

I've enjoyed perusing material by Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and Walid Shoebat because they were atheists who emphatically decided to debunk Jesus, the Bible and the resurrection, and ended up stating they are unable to refute the evidence and are now believers in Jesus and all He claimed to be. They've done a lot of the legwork in compiling interesting stuff in their books. Kinda reminds me of the apostle Paul when he says that he was trying to stamp God's church right out of existence....but things changed after his encounter with Jesus....and particularly the resurrection of Jesus.

There will always be those who truly believe "there is no Jesus", or at very least, he was a good man, maybe even a prophet who lived but it has no relevance to them right now. But I suggest that when one really cares to check him out and embraces the resurrection as a very real event, it changes one's perspective on everything!

"The first thing I did was place before you what was placed so emphatically
before me: that the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it;
that he was buried; that he was raised from death on the third day, again
exactly as Scripture says; that he presented himself alive to Peter, then to his
closest followers, and later to more than five hundred of his followers all at
the same time, most of them still around (although a few have since died); that
he then spent time with James and the rest of those he commissioned to represent
him; and that he finally presented himself alive to me. It was fitting that I
bring up the rear. I don't deserve to be included in that inner circle, as you
well know, having spent all those early years trying my best to stamp God's
church right out of existence.

"If there's no resurrection, there's no living Christ. And face it—if
there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and
mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not
only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about
God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up
Christ—sheer fabrications, if there's no resurrection.

If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't, because he was indeed dead.
And if Christ weren't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the
dark, as lost as ever. It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and
resurrection, because they're already in their graves. If all we get out of
Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot.
But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of
those who are going to leave the cemeteries."

The Message Bible, I Corinthians 15: 3-9, 16-20