Who is this Jesus? The one in whose honour today is set apart on the calendar of the nations. The one from whose coming to die we measure our years on that calendar.
In Holy Week Christians all over the world ponder Jesus.
We stand in a great succession. Men and women for 2000 years have pondered Jesus.(The name of Jesus) is not so much written as ploughed into the history of the world wrote Emerson.
All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as this One Solitary Life.
Lecky the historian of rationalism wrote: Christ has exerted so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.
The atheist Rousseau admitted it would have been a greater miracle to invent Jesus than for him to actually exist. Atheist historian H.G.Wells thought you couldn’t describe the progress of humanity honestly without giving Jesus first place.
Jesus is history maker though in our own day people discomfited by him have tried in vain to push him out of history disclaiming even his existence.
How do we counter these claims?
If people want to say Christianity’s made up they’ll be writing off a lot of historical evidence. The difficulty is that so much of that evidence is in Christian documents.
Not all of it. There are clear references to Jesus in first century writers.
Take Roman historian Tacitus. He writes that when Rome burned down in 64AD the Emperor Nero fastened the guilt …on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians…Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of…Pontius Pilate Tacitus confirms from his ancient history what Christians recite Sunday by Sunday in their creed.
The Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, a renowned scripture scholar says it would be easier, frankly, to believe that Tiberius Caesar, Jesus' contemporary, was a figment of the imagination than to believe that there never was such a person as Jesus. Trouble is you can see Tiberius’ face on a coin but you can’t see Jesus. That’s the way history goes! A Galilean carpenter wouldn’t in the normal run of things leave the same mark on history as the Emperor of Rome!
If someone says to me Christianity’s made up I’d point them patiently to the solid witness of the New Testament backed up by other first century writings.
At the heart of the New Testament is the story of Jesus who taught, healed, suffered and died in the name of his God. The astonishing part of this history is the record of his resurrection and the galvanising of his followers through the Holy Spirit.
You can’t consider Christ’s origins without facing this. If he is as believed the first born from the dead he’s got a double place in history. Jesus is in history and he’s above history as the beginning and end of all things.
Good Friday is God’s Friday because it’s the climax of the thirty three year life span of God in human flesh. We read in Saint John’s account of yesterday’s Last Supper discourse how the first disciples began to see, even before his death, how Jesus came directly from God (John 13.30b).
Holy Week ends as Christ’s origins are confirmed when God raises his son from death on Easter Day.
How people see Jesus makes all the difference in the world to them and to the world.
His story is history but it’s much more than that.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
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