Because it is true
Are you a Christian because it is helps people and society be better, or because you believe it is true? Perhaps just because your parents were, or your spouse?
C.S. Lewis often struggled to help folks keep clear that one is a Christian not because Christian faith is good, or helpful, or because someone we love professes faith. Our faith is rooted in the fact that it is true, not just that it is good or helpful or shared with others.
Lewis was — correctly — emphatic about the importance of the truth of Christianity: “Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” *
At no time in the church year is this more clear than at Easter. Easter proclaims an historical event — the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Biblical accounts go to great lengths to make it clear that Jesus’ resurrection is an actual event in history, at a particular time and place. The tomb was, and is, empty! It is true, not just as an idea or a wish, but as historical fact.
But, of course, the purpose does not end with a fact to be accepted, but with the Christian life of discipleship and our life with Jesus for eternity. This Sunday, we read from Luke of Jesus’ resurrection. (Click here to read the passage.) This passage is actually the final reminder of the historical resurrection we will read for the season of Easter and it begins the transition to the implications of the resurrection.
Our first task as the community of the resurrection is to be witnesses. Being a witness does not mean standing on the street corners shouting about the resurrection, but living as a resurrection people — living as people who are citizens of the Kingdom of God, not as people enslaved to the wants, priorities and values of this world.
How is your life a witness? If it is not, what might need to change?
This column appeared in the April 14, 2924 edition of St. John’s eNews. Click here for the complete issue.
If you are reading this at a different time, you may click here for the current eNews.
