Super Powers, Religious Groupthink, and Why Jesus

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I want to be a superhero.  Not in the figurative sense like I want to be a hero figure to my boys, or take on a profession that emulates heroism.  No, I legitimately want to be a superhero.  Super powers.  A suit.  The whole deal. And growing up, I thought the Bible confirmed this long-standing desire to be super.  Jesus himself says in Matthew 17:20 that “faith can move mountains” (paraphrasing there).  So, I thought that if I believed hard enough, that I would develop the power of telekinesis.  I would be sitting in class, focusing as hard as I could at the pencil on my desk, believing that it would move.  It never did. 

I was bummed (still am a little honestly), but I realized later on in life that faith has indeed moved many mountains.  Medical mountains, cures for diseases, childhood diseases that don't even exist anymore because somebody believed this could be eradicated.  Educational mountains, racial mountains, the mountain of slavery, civil rights, we can go on and on.  And it’s all because somebody said, "I believe I can do something about this." The power to believe is the most powerful force at mankind’s disposal.

Belief is behind every good and bad thing we have done as humans.  America got started because a group of people believed differently than England.  And after a bunch of words and a war, we won.  About a hundred years later, that same nation was divided because people believed differently about state and human rights.  And after a bunch of words, there was a Civil war where over 800,000 men died.  Every national or international conflict starts with a difference in beliefs.  That is the power of belief.

Belief empowers us to try, try again, anticipate, hope, imagine, create, and improve.  But, belief also causes us to constantly look for evidence to support what we think is true.  Once you embrace an approach or a belief system, you will almost instinctually look for evidence to support it, and filter out anything that doesn’t.  And then, out of a desire for community, we will look for people or groups that support what we believe to be true.

This is why there are so many different religions, so many factions of Christianity, and so many denominations.  Because once you get into a community where you have shared belief, that community supports your belief system, and then helps filter out the rest.  And if you believe deeply enough in a religious system that is supported by a community of like-minded believers, that religion becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I believe that God hears prayers, rewards faith, and punishes evil.  Jews believe that Abraham left his family and went to a new place because he believed that God would start a new nation through him (the nation of Israel).  Muslims believe that the angel Gabriel spoke to Muhammad gave him specific revelations from God, and that the Koran encapsulates the prophet’s teachings.  Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, Atheists all have beliefs they live by.

So, if I believe all of that, why am I a Christian?  Why did I make a career out of what some people call nothing more than an evolutionary coping mechanism?  Why Jesus?

When Jesus died, those closest to him believed that he was dead (not dead for a few days and then coming back to life…dead dead) Peter, John, Matthew, his brothers, even his own mom believed it was over.  They believed he was a powerful teacher whose controversial statements got him killed.  They believed he was not the Messiah they had been waiting for to save them.  They believed he was not the Son of God he had claimed to be.  And, they believed that their lives were in danger because of him (that part they were right about though).

You see, what makes the teachings of Jesus, Christianity, so much different than any other religion is that Jesus built the whole system around who he was.  He claimed to be the “resurrection and the life”.  He claimed to be the “Savior of the world.”  He claimed to be the long awaited Messiah.  But, you can’t be those things when you’re dead.

And so, after all of the parables, all the miracles, all of the teachings, those closest to Jesus lost faith in the end.  They ran away.  They hid.  They lied. The twelve disciples that we hold in such high esteem now wouldn’t even leave the safety of their homes to visit their friend’s grave because they were so scared.  One of Jesus’ closest friends, Peter, even denied he knew him.  That’s what they tell us about themselves; that they were cowards.  They believed that the death of Jesus meant the end.

But then, a few days later, these same cowards go into the streets of Jerusalem to preach about Jesus.  Think about that attitude reversal for a second.  This wasn’t years or even months later.  This wasn’t in a different country or city.  A few days later, in the same city that there friend and leader was murdered, they are out  there preaching his Gospel.

And when Peter and John and the rest of the disciples went into the streets of Jerusalem, do you know what the crux of that message was?  It wasn’t, “Believe that Jesus is who we says he is.”  It wasn’t repeating any of Jesus’ famous stories.  It wasn’t repeating the Sermon on the Mount.  None of that.  They had four points: You killed Him, God raised Him, we’ve seen Him, say you’re sorry!  (Don’t believe me?  Read it here.)

That was it!  Do you want to know why the church survived the 1^st century?  Do you want to know why I’m a Christian?  Do you want to know why Jesus?  Because when Jesus died, nobody believed.  Zero.  Natta.  None of them came out later and wrote, “Oh yeah, I believed the whole time!”  They didn’t just believe that something happened.  They saw something happen!  They saw their risen Savior!  God has done something for the whole world.  He raised a man from the dead.

I don’t simply believe that Jesus taught true things.  I believe that something happened.  I believe that Jesus died on the cross for everyone’s sins, and that He was raised from the dead.  And when a man can predict his own death and resurrection, and then pull it off, I go with whatever he says from there on out.

The Church wasn’t launched because of a book.  The Church was launched because of a resurrected Savior.  And the 21^st century Church doesn’t exist simply because the Bible says so.  We believe it because Matthew, an eyewitness wrote about it.  Mark, who spent time with Peter, wrote about it.  Luke, a doctor who interviewed eyewitnesses, wrote about it.  John, who took care of Jesus’ mom, wrote about it.  James, Jesus’ own brother claimed that Jesus was the Son of God (what would it take for your brother to convince you He was the Son of God?)

So, who is Jesus?  2,000 years ago, a single event definitively answered that question for his biggest skeptics.  What’s your answer?

Be honest.  Be open.  This is the Christian Safe Zone.