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Truly Uplifting Magic

It seems I am perpetually divided in my faith or at least the objects of my faith:

(Showing the blue silk): First that there was a historical Jesus.

(Showing the red silk): Second, that He died for me.

(Showing the yellow silk): and finally, third, that if I believe in Him, I can have eternal life in heaven.

Each of these three aspects of the Christian faith has provided a different stumbling block for me. Like Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians: For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. (1Cor 1.22-25)

I want them to be together and to have belief in all three fully ? after all, the reward promises to be great ? eternal life. So what?s the problem?

(Showing blue silk): Was there a real Jesus? Was there a man born of a virgin just as predicted by prophets hundreds of years earlier? Did he perform signs and miracles as described in the Gospels? Did he cure the blind, the lame or those who had leprosy? Would he really have eaten with prostitutes and those people considered unworthy? Could he have brought the dead back to life? And the biggie: was he crucified on a cross, did he die there (as the prophets predicted) and was he resurrected?

These are big questions. To be honest, if any one of the propositions is true, there is plenty of reason to be impressed. I mean bringing a dead man out of his tomb or restoring the life of a small girl are no small feats…

Truly Uplifting Magic

It seems I am perpetually divided in my faith or at least the objects of my faith:

(Showing the blue silk): First that there was a historical Jesus.

(Showing the red silk): Second, that He died for me.

(Showing the yellow silk): and finally, third, that if I believe in Him, I can have eternal life in heaven.

I want them to be together and to have belief in all three fully ? after all, the reward promises to be great ? eternal life. So what?s the problem?

But maybe it?s not all true. Maybe it is embellished by the early Church. That?s what I wondered for a long time. After all, maybe we?re just getting the winner?s view of history.

The problem with the theory, though, is that there were obviously folks looking to disprove the story of Jesus even as the story was happening. It would make sense that if there was some fraud, it would have been the subject of a tremendous expose by the ruling authorities: the Jews or the Romans.

And certainly His followers would have no reason to stick around after his gruesome death ? if he wasn?t resurrected. They?d be more than frauds, they?d be suicidal.

The Apostle Paul summed up the situation pretty well: ?For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.?

But we do know that someone stuck around ? after all, we have Christianity today and history is filled with the long history of the Church in all of its forms tracing back to the life and death of Jesus. Chances are the early disciples were not suicidal but knew exactly what they handed down to us today.

(Placing blue silk over front of table and retrieving red silk) To be honest, after study and thinking about it, I don?t really have any problem believing that Jesus existed, that he died and that he was resurrected.

Now, maybe that is your are of struggle, that?s okay because I think the other two areas might help you (and me) accept and understand the propositions more clearly.

The second proposition I mentioned when we started, was that Jesus died for me. I don?t mean this in some kind of general or philosophical sense. I mean that Jesus literally died for me, Tim Quinlan ? Boy Magician.

I was born about 1,960 years after Jesus was born and about 1,927 years after he was horribly tortured and murdered on a cross. The chance that He knew me seems remote. I might have believed that he knew that someone like me might exist later in the history of our earth or even that a person with my qualities (skeptical yet charming) may exist in the future.

But how on earth could he know that he knew me, Tim Quinlan ? Boy Magician. We haven?t even gotten to whether he died for me ? we?re still just talking about whether he knew me.

On this question, we have some help from the man himself. Jesus reminds followers that: ?Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.? (Mt 10:29)

Assuming we have no sparrows in our audience, this is pretty good news. God views our worth far more than the little bird and yet even for the little sparrow, He is aware of every thing we do and that we face.

Okay, I think (and maybe you do too) I?ll grant you that God/Jesus knows me, know all that I face and all that I do but did he die for me? If so, what does that mean? I?m still going to die, right?

Yeah, death is the end result of living. In fact, scientists have found that the single greatest cause of death is living ? it?s a one-to-one relationship. So how would Jesus? death have helped me or been for me if I am still going to die?

The red silk represents much more than the image of death (a violent death) it is also a color we associate with ?love.? B.B. King used to sing a song, ?Nobody loves me but my mama and she may be jiving me too.?

That love that we consider absolute is usually the kind of love we associate with our parents or someone close. The kind of love that says, ?it doesn?t matter what you have done, I love you.? There are people on death row in prisons in Texas and Florida that still receive marriage proposals from people on the outside. That?s not love, that?s weird but it at least shows that in our frail human approach to caring, we can care for those who seem the least deserving of care.

Jesus said it takes a special kind of person to lay down his life for a friend. ?No one has greater love than this, that one lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

But what about the unworthy among us, the Apostle Paul kicks in with a pretty amazing analogy and truism: “For while we were yet weak, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will anyone die, though perhaps for the good man someone would even dare to die. But God commends His own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8).

(Drape red silk over edge of table and pick up yellow silk).

The proposition that remains is the one that really gave me the most trouble. I?d say to God in prayer ? which by the way means I must assume God exists and that he cares about me personally to hear me ? what does it mean to say that I believe Jesus existed on earth, that He taught, cured folks, performed miracles and was crucified and resurrected? Where does that get me?

Before we get to the answer, let?s back up and take a running start to this question. There are at least two Christian schools of thought on who we are: some churches believe we are basically bad or evil with a proclivity towards good (such as Calvinists) and some hold we are good with a proclivity towards evil or sin (such as Catholics).

I don?t want to debate that issue here because: 1) I?m not smart enough; and 2) fortunately we end up in about the same place for the purposes of this last issue. As my mentor once said, ?either way, you ain?t perfect.? That?s true. And either way, I am a sinner. Paul points out that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Rm 3:23).

So, let me think about this, if all have sinned that means I have and it also means you have. At this point in the show I usually ask for some audience participation. I?d like everyone to stand up and tell us your deepest, darkest sin.

Naah, I?m just joking. We?ll just have the people on the front row tell us their sins, not everyone. Just joking, again. But I bet if you looked around the room you might see things like I do. I see people who I am convinced are sinners, some who I can?t imagine would ever sin and some I wonder about.

But we all have sinned. We?re not perfect and that?s fine. Some of us may look smooth and without any blemishes like this pretty yellow silk. But if we look close enough, we?d find some flaw, some blemish.

So to return to the previous question, what does it mean that Jesus died for us? Why is that significant at all? We just got done pointing out how each of us has sinned and is sinful and that the end of our lives is something that is inevitable. We also know that God?s plan for those who have died is judgment.

Judgment on our own terms could be pretty scary. I know that you are sinful as am I. I also know that in that state, I am not fit to before the God of the universe. I?d be foolish to walk into God?s office and suggest that he should take me for ever and treat me to what we call heaven because I deserve it, or he owes it to me.

He, God, doesn?t really owe me anything. The reality is, my next breath is a gift from God. God could pull out the support and I?d be a wonderful pile of carbon with a yellow silk.

This is the harsh part. Jesus tells us through the Gospels that it is much better to tear out your eyeball if it offends or cut off your hand if it is sinful than to go to Hell with both eyes or both hands. (Mk 9:43-48)

He is using the amputation metaphor to point out how drastic a decision we face. We?re not getting into Heaven unless we deserve and the bad news is that not one of us deserves because we?ve all sinned. Jesus told us ?Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” shall enter the kingdom of heaven? (Matt. 7:21).”

The good news is that Jesus? death for us personally, has saved us from this horrible situation of being turned away at Heaven?s gate. Paul writes, ?But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.? (Eph 2:4-9)

So there we have the three propositions about which you, like I, have had doubts or concerns. Jesus was real, Jesus died for me, and by Jesus death and resurrection, I have been saved from not being with God in heaven. (Showing each silk in turn and grouping for Blendo move)

The way I found to keep the faith about each of the propositions is to not take them separately. After all, whether Jesus existed is more than just a history question. (Show blue silk).

The fact that Jesus accepted the horrible death that he did and that he did it for me personally is more than just the reading of some last will and testament ? it was an act that changed the entire world. (Showing red silk).

And finally, the grace of God through Jesus? sacrifice that keeps my sins from denying me eternity with God is much more than hope, it is built firmly on the first two propositions. (Showing yellow silk).

When the three propositions come together, they (unfurl blended silk) provide a beautiful, whole piece that not only shows their relationship to each other but shows that there is unity in God?s plan and that plan is specifically made for me . . . and you.