I’ve mentioned here before one of the basic facts of our existence – we are spiritual beings. It all boils down to our desire for meaning. No one goes through life thinking it’s all utterly meaningless; but what we think shows in how we search for and find that meaning, and how we live our lives reflects what we’ve actually found.
Some may still be in the searching. They’re wandering and cannot find it, but they slog on. Others may believe there is no meaning outside of themselves (but the way they live betrays the fact that they really don’t believe that). Most find meaning in a god of some kind. It may be Buddha. It may be the Quran. It may be their nationalism. Or their race.
We’re in a time where it seems we all get to create our own realities. But I don’t think so. I don’t think it possible. I understand that we all may have different experiences and the way we’ve lived life may affect how we see reality. But it’s still reality. You can never convince me that 2+2= 5, no matter how firmly you believe it in your version of the truth. There’s just too much evidence in the world for too many things that are, and unless we’re living in the matrix where it’s all some computer-generated illusion, I’m going to stick with an overarching reality that applies to us all.
And yet one might say “the spiritual is subjective.” Is it? “The spiritual is really about our personal feelings, emotions, and experiences.” Really? What if there is evidence of a being that creates and sustains all things, and yet seeks to interact with us? I mean, there is plenty of evidence that there was a Buddha-like spiritualist who taught many centuries ago. But that’s all he did. He didn’t create. And what he taught circles back to a spirituality that one could once again claim as subjective.
Or to look at other forms of spirituality, what do Muslims or Jews have as evidence that they are right? The creation itself? Sure. The creation tells me that there is something there. And this is the thing with which we struggle. We have the incomplete picture because we can look at the complexity of life and creation and the utter interaction and interdependence of all beings in a way that is truly miraculous and we can say, “there is no way this just appeared from nothing.” But that doesn’t get us far enough.
Would a personal creator just leave us hanging, as some believe? Does he even want to come into fellowship with his creation at all? It’s debatable but for one thing – there seems to be evidence that he did. Quite a bit of evidence tells us that a man named Jesus existed. That he was a man of peace and love, who spoke and taught continuously about a creator who wanted that personal relationship with his creation. And Jesus could have just been like the rest of them – just like Buddha or any of the other sages and prophets over time (and a lot of people are quite content to leave it right there). But for one thing. In addition to claiming to be one and the same as the very creator of whom he spoke, he backed it up by rising from the dead.
Myth? Legend? Utter bunk? There’s far too much evidence out there to allow a sensible person just to write it off and ignore it. There are the claims of eyewitnesses and their testimonies. There are the very actions of his followers, who would rather go to their deaths than to deny they had seen him alive after he was crucified, dead, and buried (by the way, who does that – who dies for what they know to be a lie?). There is corroborating evidence elsewhere.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 17 and 19, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins,” and “If in Christ we have hopein this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” As Tom Schrader would have said, “If you want to attack and discredit us, here’s where you do it. Just prove the resurrection wrong.” The historical event of the resurrection points to the reality that Christianity claims. That is where it stands or falls.
I was saved first through the preaching of a pastor that reached me both emotionally and factually. His words made me own up to the truth that I was no innocent bystander – I was right in the thick of it when it came to lies and rebellion. I just had to face it. And I had enough of a sense of the God of the Bible to know that it was him against whom I was rebelling. I got the distinct feeling – and I would think most people could think the same if they gave it thought – that I couldn’t just sit there and say, “yeah, he’s the creator of everything I know or can ever know; perfect in holiness, righteousness, love, and…justice,” and then laugh it off. Wouldn’t the creator of the universe deserve more than that?
And yet, as I learned more, I also learned that he made a way out of this – that he himself paid for whatever wrongs I had done against him. And he backed it up. He gave evidence of this by raising Jesus from the dead.
I learned all of the evidence for that later in my life, but it has only served to solidify that which I’d known that first day. That I was a sinner in need of a savior – and knowing that God showed his love for me in that while I was in that state, Jesus died for me (read Romans 5:8) and that for my sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin – that is, Jesus – so that in him I might become the righteousness of God (read 2 Corinthians 5:21 for that one), it all fits.
Because here’s the deal: God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and [here it is again] of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)
I think I’ve written this before – the first thing I did when I realized my situation was grab a Bible, open it to a random verse, and read, “Before every man there lies a wide and pleasant road he thinks is right, but it ends in death (Proverbs 16:25 in the New Living Translation).” I saw immediately that that verse was telling me where I had been just moments before. I was spiritual. We all are. But I thought, like many of us, that I was on the right path – the “wide and pleasant road” of Proverbs 16.
But, if Christ was indeed raised from the dead, then only one spirituality meets reality and makes it right for us. I appreciate the searching, but c’mon – when you’re faced with that, can you really turn your back on the answer?
A recommendation for further reading: Cold Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace.