Choosing To Believe
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series II, Cycle C
Object:
Perhaps you recall recently when a burial box from the first century A.D. had come to light, on which was inscribed the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." This revelation caused quite a stir in the world of Christian scholarship because, if authentic, it would be the oldest tangible link to the historical Jesus -- evidence of his actual existence. While even many non-Christians agree that Jesus was a real person, no physical evidence from the first century has ever been conclusively tied with his life. So, when several experts in antiquities judged this box -- or "ossuary" as it was called -- to be authentic, it was big news.
But alas, now comes the news that it is not authentic. The latest investigations of the box declare that it may be a true burial box from the time of Jesus, but that the inscription was added much later. In other words, it is a forgery.
Now I don't know if that has had any effect on your faith, but I would guess that it has not. Most of us who follow Jesus do so because of an inner commitment, and we made that decision completely independent of any physical "proof." Thus the ossuary, if it had been authentic, would have been a nice confirmation of something that we already believe, but the debunking of the claim really doesn't make any difference in the solidity of our faith.
I raise the matter of this burial box because I want to talk about the foundations of belief, and the yes-it-is/no-it's-not story of the ossuary is a case in point.
Our text is from the Old Testament, but before going there, I want to point out something from a New Testament passage, Jesus'parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). As the story goes, there was a certain rich man who lived very well in a fine house and dined on sumptuous meals. Although his name does not appear in the Bible, he is sometimes called "Dives," which comes from the Latin word for "rich." Outside his gate was a desperately poor, sick man named Lazarus, covered with sores. He was so hungry that he wished he could have even the crumbs that fell from Dives' table. But Dives ignored Lazarus, and eventually the poor man died and was carried by angels to be with Abraham in paradise.
Not long afterward, Dives also died, but he went to Hades, the final destination of the unrighteous. There he was in misery. He called to Abraham to send Lazarus to him with a drop of water for his tongue, but it was not to be. Abraham responded kindly but plainly to Dives. During your life, Abraham told Dives, you had a life of plenty and Lazarus had nothing. But now things have reversed and following death, said Abraham, there is an uncrossable chasm separating them.
Dives then asked Abraham to at least let Lazarus go to Dives'five living brothers and warn them to behave more compassionately in their lives than Dives had in his. Abraham responded, "They have Moses and the prophets [that is, the scriptures]; they should listen to them." Dives replied, "But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will listen." In other words, if they get real, tangible proof, they will be convinced. But Abraham came back with, "If they do not listen to the scriptures, they won't be convinced by someone rising from the dead."
Abraham, you see, was exactly right. So-called proof can always be explained away if you want it to be. Consider this story from Lee Strobel, who at the time of this incident was an award-winning journalist with the Chicago Tribune. And he was also, quite plainly, an unbeliever. In fact, when it came to matters of faith, he identified himself as an atheist. In one of his books, he tells of the time when his newborn daughter was rushed into intensive care because of a mysterious illness that threatened her life. The doctors weren't certain what was going on, but it was clearly serious.
Strobel says that even though he was an atheist, he was so desperate that he prayed anyway, imploring God -- if God existed -- to heal his daughter. A short time later, his daughter, to everyone's surprise, did recover, completely. The doctors were left scratching their heads.
Did that convince Strobel that God was real? It did not. He thought, "What a coincidence! She must have had some bacteria or virus that spontaneously disappeared." He remained in his atheism.1
You see, you can always take any seemingly miraculous thing and debunk it if you are so inclined. You can explain it as an elaborate hoax, a coincidence, the ravings of a confused person, superstition, group hysteria, a lie, a hallucination, or something else. And there are also those spectacular failures among Christians that you can point to and say, "See, Christianity must not be real." Some time ago, a Catholic bishop in Arizona was arrested for a hit-and-run accident. Certain television evangelists have been exposed as money-grabbing frauds. Some pastors have abused children. The list goes on. We can always find reasons not to believe if we want to.
So Abraham is exactly right when he tells Dives that sending someone to his brothers from the dead would be ineffective and non-persuasive. They'd explain it away.
Which, of course, is what happened with lots of people when God did send someone to them from the death -- Jesus himself. To this day, you can hear the speculations of people about what "really" happened on that first Easter, how Jesus' disciples were fooled or how his body was moved, or some other theory.
The same thing proved true of the account we read from the Old Testament of Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal. Those prophets begged their god to bring fire to their altar, but nothing happened, but when Elijah made a similar request to the Lord God about his altar, God's fire consumed not only the sacrifice, but also the altar, and even the water in the trench. Seeing that, the crowd of eyewitnesses was convinced. According to the Bible story, "They fell on their faces and said, 'The Lord indeed is God.'"
However, the person who had brought the prophets of Baal into the land was the king's wife, Jezebel, and she was not persuaded.
Apparently, she was not present to see the event, but she heard about it from her husband, who, as far as we can tell, did believe it, though it did not cause him to become a better man. When Jezebel learned what had happened, the only effect on her was to cause her to swear by the gods she did believe in to avenge herself on Elijah. And it's clear from the subsequent history of Israel in the Old Testament that the miracle on Mount Carmel had only a temporary effect in any case, for it didn't take long before the people were worshiping other gods again.
No, when it comes right down to it, accepting Christianity is a matter of choosing to believe. There's plenty of evidence to support belief in Christ and to justify taking the step of committing yourself to him, but if you wish, you can explain all of it some other way, or even simply refuse to consider it.
Do you remember the old Sunday school chorus, "I Have Decided To Follow Jesus"? It means exactly what it says: Following Jesus is a decision.
But here's the thing: For those who make the decision to follow Jesus, there is a different kind of certainty available. Jesus referred to it one time when he was challenged by some of his countrymen about where his teaching came from. He responded, "My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own" (John 7:16-17). In other words, it is only by embracing faith in God and by doing what you perceive as his will that you can gain a sense of the reality of Christ.
Saint Augustine put it this way, "Believe that you may understand...." That is not what we usually mean when we use the word "certainty," but it is what we call "conviction," which means that we are convinced on a deep, inner level.
Let me go back to Lee Strobel for a moment, the man who decided that his daughter's miraculous recovery was a coincidence. Much later, after his wife started attending church, Strobel investigated Christianity and eventually became a believer, but it wasn't any kind of so-called proof that changed him. He actually used his skills as an investigative reporter to look at the evidence for faith in Christ, and he says that that cleared away some of his objections.
But what happened after that was a pure choice. He says, "[I had] to overcome my pride ... to drive a stake through the egoism and arrogance that threatened to hold me back. [I had] to conquer the self-interest and self-adulation that were keeping my heart shut tight from God."2
In my own experience, I can tell you about two different times when I responded to the call of Christ, each time on a different level. One was when I was thirteen and attending a church youth rally where an invitation to follow Christ was given. I felt compelled to go forward and it resulted there in a gush of emotions and tears. Afterward, I felt new and changed. Later when I was in my late teens, and I had learned more, including many of the arguments against Christian faith, the emotional experience of my early teens was no longer sufficient. I remember things coming to a moment where I thought, "I have a choice. I can believe in God and Christ or not. What do I choose to believe?" Well, I chose to believe that God exists and that Jesus is the one I should follow. There was very little emotion involved in that decision. It took place simply in the arena of my mind. Confirmations that I made the right choice have come in several ways and at different times since, but none of it is what I can hand you in the sense of scientific proof.
It comes down to this: Do you want to know God personally and follow Christ? If so, there is plenty of evidence to support that decision. If you don't want that, then there are ways to deny the testimony of the evidence.
Among that evidence is the Bible itself. When Dives asked that Lazarus be sent from the death to warn his brother, Abraham said to Dives, "They have the scriptures; they should listen to them." In other words, "It's all there in black and white. They should take seriously what's there. But, if they aren't convinced by scripture then they aren't going to be convinced by a mind-blowing resurrection."
When you decide you want to know God and follow Jesus, there is that inner witness that Jesus talked about -- do the will of God and then you will know whether or not the teaching is from God. Or we might say this in shorthand as "believe first and then you will be convinced." We might like it to be the other way around -- "Convince me and then I will believe." In the end, though, it comes down to what we want and what we choose. If we choose to believe, our faith is not going to be strengthened by a burial box from the first century or shaken when it proves to be false.
Choose to believe in God and to follow Christ. The reward of belief is the fire and the peace of God's presence -- and the inner conviction that you are on the right path.
__________
1. Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 254.
2. Ibid., pp. 255-256.
But alas, now comes the news that it is not authentic. The latest investigations of the box declare that it may be a true burial box from the time of Jesus, but that the inscription was added much later. In other words, it is a forgery.
Now I don't know if that has had any effect on your faith, but I would guess that it has not. Most of us who follow Jesus do so because of an inner commitment, and we made that decision completely independent of any physical "proof." Thus the ossuary, if it had been authentic, would have been a nice confirmation of something that we already believe, but the debunking of the claim really doesn't make any difference in the solidity of our faith.
I raise the matter of this burial box because I want to talk about the foundations of belief, and the yes-it-is/no-it's-not story of the ossuary is a case in point.
Our text is from the Old Testament, but before going there, I want to point out something from a New Testament passage, Jesus'parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). As the story goes, there was a certain rich man who lived very well in a fine house and dined on sumptuous meals. Although his name does not appear in the Bible, he is sometimes called "Dives," which comes from the Latin word for "rich." Outside his gate was a desperately poor, sick man named Lazarus, covered with sores. He was so hungry that he wished he could have even the crumbs that fell from Dives' table. But Dives ignored Lazarus, and eventually the poor man died and was carried by angels to be with Abraham in paradise.
Not long afterward, Dives also died, but he went to Hades, the final destination of the unrighteous. There he was in misery. He called to Abraham to send Lazarus to him with a drop of water for his tongue, but it was not to be. Abraham responded kindly but plainly to Dives. During your life, Abraham told Dives, you had a life of plenty and Lazarus had nothing. But now things have reversed and following death, said Abraham, there is an uncrossable chasm separating them.
Dives then asked Abraham to at least let Lazarus go to Dives'five living brothers and warn them to behave more compassionately in their lives than Dives had in his. Abraham responded, "They have Moses and the prophets [that is, the scriptures]; they should listen to them." Dives replied, "But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will listen." In other words, if they get real, tangible proof, they will be convinced. But Abraham came back with, "If they do not listen to the scriptures, they won't be convinced by someone rising from the dead."
Abraham, you see, was exactly right. So-called proof can always be explained away if you want it to be. Consider this story from Lee Strobel, who at the time of this incident was an award-winning journalist with the Chicago Tribune. And he was also, quite plainly, an unbeliever. In fact, when it came to matters of faith, he identified himself as an atheist. In one of his books, he tells of the time when his newborn daughter was rushed into intensive care because of a mysterious illness that threatened her life. The doctors weren't certain what was going on, but it was clearly serious.
Strobel says that even though he was an atheist, he was so desperate that he prayed anyway, imploring God -- if God existed -- to heal his daughter. A short time later, his daughter, to everyone's surprise, did recover, completely. The doctors were left scratching their heads.
Did that convince Strobel that God was real? It did not. He thought, "What a coincidence! She must have had some bacteria or virus that spontaneously disappeared." He remained in his atheism.1
You see, you can always take any seemingly miraculous thing and debunk it if you are so inclined. You can explain it as an elaborate hoax, a coincidence, the ravings of a confused person, superstition, group hysteria, a lie, a hallucination, or something else. And there are also those spectacular failures among Christians that you can point to and say, "See, Christianity must not be real." Some time ago, a Catholic bishop in Arizona was arrested for a hit-and-run accident. Certain television evangelists have been exposed as money-grabbing frauds. Some pastors have abused children. The list goes on. We can always find reasons not to believe if we want to.
So Abraham is exactly right when he tells Dives that sending someone to his brothers from the dead would be ineffective and non-persuasive. They'd explain it away.
Which, of course, is what happened with lots of people when God did send someone to them from the death -- Jesus himself. To this day, you can hear the speculations of people about what "really" happened on that first Easter, how Jesus' disciples were fooled or how his body was moved, or some other theory.
The same thing proved true of the account we read from the Old Testament of Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal. Those prophets begged their god to bring fire to their altar, but nothing happened, but when Elijah made a similar request to the Lord God about his altar, God's fire consumed not only the sacrifice, but also the altar, and even the water in the trench. Seeing that, the crowd of eyewitnesses was convinced. According to the Bible story, "They fell on their faces and said, 'The Lord indeed is God.'"
However, the person who had brought the prophets of Baal into the land was the king's wife, Jezebel, and she was not persuaded.
Apparently, she was not present to see the event, but she heard about it from her husband, who, as far as we can tell, did believe it, though it did not cause him to become a better man. When Jezebel learned what had happened, the only effect on her was to cause her to swear by the gods she did believe in to avenge herself on Elijah. And it's clear from the subsequent history of Israel in the Old Testament that the miracle on Mount Carmel had only a temporary effect in any case, for it didn't take long before the people were worshiping other gods again.
No, when it comes right down to it, accepting Christianity is a matter of choosing to believe. There's plenty of evidence to support belief in Christ and to justify taking the step of committing yourself to him, but if you wish, you can explain all of it some other way, or even simply refuse to consider it.
Do you remember the old Sunday school chorus, "I Have Decided To Follow Jesus"? It means exactly what it says: Following Jesus is a decision.
But here's the thing: For those who make the decision to follow Jesus, there is a different kind of certainty available. Jesus referred to it one time when he was challenged by some of his countrymen about where his teaching came from. He responded, "My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own" (John 7:16-17). In other words, it is only by embracing faith in God and by doing what you perceive as his will that you can gain a sense of the reality of Christ.
Saint Augustine put it this way, "Believe that you may understand...." That is not what we usually mean when we use the word "certainty," but it is what we call "conviction," which means that we are convinced on a deep, inner level.
Let me go back to Lee Strobel for a moment, the man who decided that his daughter's miraculous recovery was a coincidence. Much later, after his wife started attending church, Strobel investigated Christianity and eventually became a believer, but it wasn't any kind of so-called proof that changed him. He actually used his skills as an investigative reporter to look at the evidence for faith in Christ, and he says that that cleared away some of his objections.
But what happened after that was a pure choice. He says, "[I had] to overcome my pride ... to drive a stake through the egoism and arrogance that threatened to hold me back. [I had] to conquer the self-interest and self-adulation that were keeping my heart shut tight from God."2
In my own experience, I can tell you about two different times when I responded to the call of Christ, each time on a different level. One was when I was thirteen and attending a church youth rally where an invitation to follow Christ was given. I felt compelled to go forward and it resulted there in a gush of emotions and tears. Afterward, I felt new and changed. Later when I was in my late teens, and I had learned more, including many of the arguments against Christian faith, the emotional experience of my early teens was no longer sufficient. I remember things coming to a moment where I thought, "I have a choice. I can believe in God and Christ or not. What do I choose to believe?" Well, I chose to believe that God exists and that Jesus is the one I should follow. There was very little emotion involved in that decision. It took place simply in the arena of my mind. Confirmations that I made the right choice have come in several ways and at different times since, but none of it is what I can hand you in the sense of scientific proof.
It comes down to this: Do you want to know God personally and follow Christ? If so, there is plenty of evidence to support that decision. If you don't want that, then there are ways to deny the testimony of the evidence.
Among that evidence is the Bible itself. When Dives asked that Lazarus be sent from the death to warn his brother, Abraham said to Dives, "They have the scriptures; they should listen to them." In other words, "It's all there in black and white. They should take seriously what's there. But, if they aren't convinced by scripture then they aren't going to be convinced by a mind-blowing resurrection."
When you decide you want to know God and follow Jesus, there is that inner witness that Jesus talked about -- do the will of God and then you will know whether or not the teaching is from God. Or we might say this in shorthand as "believe first and then you will be convinced." We might like it to be the other way around -- "Convince me and then I will believe." In the end, though, it comes down to what we want and what we choose. If we choose to believe, our faith is not going to be strengthened by a burial box from the first century or shaken when it proves to be false.
Choose to believe in God and to follow Christ. The reward of belief is the fire and the peace of God's presence -- and the inner conviction that you are on the right path.
__________
1. Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 254.
2. Ibid., pp. 255-256.
