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“Not
Done in a Corner”
One thing that distinguishes Lutherans from
Christians of other denominations is the confession “we cannot by our own
reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, or come to Him, but
the Holy Spirit must call us by the Gospel.” Mere facts cannot convince us
of Christ’s resurrection. Our
sin-darkened minds need to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, or there will
be no faith.
The facts are out there, however. The Christian religion is
historical. Not just a set of
teachings, the Christian faith is a series of events. It is rooted in history from start to
finish. It consists of occurrences
as verifiable as any other historical facts of similar age. A few years back, Time magazine conceded that there was
more evidence for Christ’s bodily resurrection than there was for Hannibal’s defeat of
the Roman army. (That from a
publication not always friendly toward the Christian faith!) C.S. Lewis claimed to have become a
Christian largely because he could no longer escape the facts. In addition, Lee Strobel,
former editor of the Chicago Tribune, set out to disprove the Christian
faith on the basis of the facts. Strobel ended up
becoming a Christian in part because of the shocking amount of evidence in
support of it. In fact, Strobel is now a pastor. Dr. Paul Meier (professor of archaeology
at Western Michigan University,
and Second Vice President of our synod) has presented us with a wealth of historical
evidence supporting especially the biblical accounts of Christ’s birth,
death, and resurrection. Faith, it
turns out, is not so much a “blind leap into the dark but a sensible step
into the light” (Morgan, Robert J. Evidence and Truth: Foundations for Christian Truth).
St.
Paul, in
reference to the major events of Christ’s saving ministry, told Festus that
“none of these things has escaped [the king’s] notice, for this has not
been done in a corner.” That is, the
events of the gospel did not unfold in a vacuum, but in time and
space. There were eye-witnesses to
the events . . . many of them. At this time of the year, we think
especially of the Resurrection of Jesus, for which there is a plethora of
evidence. As a young pastor, I once
laid out the evidence in an Easter Sunday sermon. Trouble was, after about twenty five
minutes of that, no one much cared anymore.
Again, faith is not merely a response to evidence. Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet reason need not be thought of as an
enemy of the faith.
Pastor Groth
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