No religion? No Problem. or not?

Found this while looking for a picture for the slide show on Sunday...from the Kansas City Examiner - Just some food for your thoughts...

By Dr. Bob Beltz
Earlier this week USA Today ran an article entitled, “No religion? No problem.” The author, Nica Lalli, has apparently just written a new book about her unbelief. The article expressed her relief that the trend toward a growing lack of faith in the United States makes her feel like she is not alone in her non-religious orientation. In the piece she gives the statistic that the fastest growing “religion” in America is non-religion. In the survey she references the percentage of people specifically stating that they have no religion is up to 15% of the US population. Ms. Lalli speculates that the 2.5% - 5% that refused to even answer the survey should also be placed with the non-believing group, bringing the grand total to 20%. She notes that this figure represents sixty-one million Americans, almost as many people as voted for Barak Obama, and which put him in the White House.
I can identify with Nica. I used to be an atheist. Most of my friends in college were; and many still are. But what I’d like to do in this article is to tell you the primary reason why I am now a believer. Here it is: I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what I celebrate on Easter. That might sound redundant, but many people celebrate Easter who don’t believe in the resurrection. You don’t have to believe in the resurrection to let your children go on Easter egg hunts, and get Easter baskets, and eat chocolate covered marshmallow eggs. I did all that when I didn’t believe. But now…I believe. I started believing as a university student– a time when many young men and women stop believing. At first it was a bit of an existential leap of faith, but over time I found myself needing reasons to either keep believing, or quit. For me, the resurrection was the keystone. Let me briefly point out three reasons why I believe Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and on the third day (or portions thereof) rose from the dead, thus proving himself to be the Christ, the Son of God.
The Empty Tomb: Faith in Jesus is rooted in history. It either happened or it didn’t. As an unbeliever, I never gave much though to why I didn’t believe. I just didn’t. I find this to be the case for most unbelievers. I do recognize that there are many thoughtful atheists, but there are many unbelievers who don’t do much thinking at all. I have come to the conviction that the documents contained in the New Testament are historically reliable. Even extra-biblical sources acknowledge the historicity of Jesus and his execution under orders from the Roman Procurator of Judea, a man named Pontius Pilate. If you can get that far with me, lets look at the circumstances surrounding the death and burial of Jesus. Two members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, went to Pilate and asked for the body of the dead Nazarene. This in and of itself took tremendous courage. The men who knew him best were all in hiding, fearing that they would be next on the Roman gibbet. Joseph is described as being a wealthy man who owned a garden where a tomb had been newly carved out of stone. If you travel to Israel today, you can still see many such tombs from this time period, including one that some claim was the actual tomb of Jesus. The body was prepared for burial using linen strips and the spices that held them in place. It was placed in the tomb and a typical stone, carved for such a purpose, was rolled down an inclined trough that ran in front of these kinds of tombs. The religious leaders of Israel, who thought Jesus was a fraud, remembered that he claimed he would come back from the dead. In order to prevent a charade from taking place, they went back to Pilate and asked for three-days of security at the tomb. Pilate sent a Roman security force and ordered the tomb to be sealed with the official seal of Rome. This all took place of what we now call Good Friday. If you can picture the above scene all in place, take a look at what we find early morning on Sunday, in Jewish culture of the time, the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, head to the tomb to do for Jesus what Nicodemus and Joseph had actually already done. When they arrive, the place is in a state of chaos. The Roman seal has been broken – an offense punishable by death. The Roman guard is shaking in stark-raving terror and later flees the site – another offense punishable by death for the guard. The one to two ton stone has not only been rolled away, but the language of the text indicates that rather than being freed from its stop and rolled down the hill, it has been rolled back up the trough and moved some distance. And finally, the tomb itself is empty. There are a number of questions a thoughtful person should ask themselves at this point, whether they are a believer or non-believer. Who moved the stone? What happened to the guard? Who broke the seal? Where is the body. Oh, I should point out that the tomb was not empty. “Huh?” you ask? The tomb still contained the graveclothes, which would have molded into a cocoon-type shell. But the shell had no body in it! No wonder we are told that when John looked in the tomb with Peter, they believed! The linen cloth that covered the dead person’s face was even folded and lying away from the graveclothes. Hang on to those questions for a few minutes.
The Eyewitness Testimony: As if the above were not baffling enough for your average unbeliever (remember: I used to be one!) You also have to account for the staggering number of reports of eyewitnesses who saw Jesus alive. Remember the original OJ trial? Half of America thought he was guilty, and half thought he was innocent. The evidence was not adequate for a jury to reach a guilty verdict because one piece of critical evidence was missing. No one saw it happen! There were no eyewitnesses. What do you think would have happened if the prosecution could have brought in an eyewitness? What if they could have produced two or three eyewitnesses? How about a dozen? Would there be any doubt that he did it? Or what if Johnny Cochran could have brought in five hundred eyewitnesses who could place OJ in a different city on the day the murders occurred? There were over five hundred eyewitnesses of the resurrection. Jesus appeared on numerous occasions over a period of forty days, giving what Luke the physician called “many convincing proofs.” That leads into the third reason I believe in the resurrection.
The Exceptional Transformation of the Disciples: The biblical narrative is quite clear in its description of the cowardice of most of the followers of Jesus at the time of the crucifixion. Most fled. When Peter stood outside the house where Jesus was being tried, he repeatedly denied even knowing him. Ten days after the forty-days of “many convincing proofs” Peter stood in the middle of Jerusalem during the Feast of Pentecost and boldly proclaimed that Jesus has risen from the dead and is the savior of the world. It is estimated that as many as a million people, from dozens of nations, converged on Jerusalem during this feast. Something radical has happened to Peter. And what is true of Peter is true of the other disciples and followers of Jesus. They go everywhere and tell everyone about Jesus. One striking fact about all this that has always driven the reality of this home is the historic record that of the original twelve disciples, minus Judas, ten were put to death for preaching the message of Christ. Only John lived a full life and even his later years were spent on the Roman penal colony of Patmos. If you add James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul, who claimed the risen Jesus appeared to him on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus (where he was headed to arrest and imprison those who claimed Jesus had risen) you have an amazing list of early martyrs. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul was beheaded. Thomas – the doubter – was killed in India. James was beheaded and Nathanael was flayed. Go down the list and you will see that they all were put to death for proclaiming the resurrection and then calling people to faith in Jesus. Many people have died for a lie they believed to be the truth. They “drink the Kool-aid.” But few people will die for a lie they know to be a lie – especially when crucifixion and flaying are involved. Yet all these men died for claiming to be eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus!
There have been a number of strange theories through the centuries that attempt to explain one or more of these three reasons I have given. Most of them take more faith to believe than the original story. But when I look at the weight of the evidence, I have come to the conviction that the most reasonable explanation is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, just as he said he would. For me, this is the starting point in processing everything from the existence of God, to the truth claims of the Christian message.
One final reason I believe in the resurrection is very personal and subjective. My own life has been transformed through faith in Jesus and the relationship I have had with him for nearly forty years. This atheist became a believer. Jesus is very real and very personal to me. I sense his presence in my life. I experience his “speaking” to me through the scriptures and in my innermost being. I’ve encountered him at a very personal level. Someone else might say the same about believing in a rhubarb plant, but I have evidence that supports my experience.
If you are reading this and you are a follower of Jesus, I hope this piece is an encouragement to you. If you are part of the 15%, I challenge you to carefully explore these things. But remember, it was CS Lewis who once warned that an atheist can’t be too careful about all this. You might find, like he did, that you come “kicking and struggling” to faith by the sheer weight of the evidence.
Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed!