First Step

 

This graphic came from Pixabay.com. I don't know the artist, but I certainly know the subject. In fact, it's so well known that the graphic is identified as "stones-symbol-christianity." Anyone who claims the name Christian must be able to explain the meaning behind the art on the two stones, not the stones themselves.

Christianity is based on unverifiable facts: Jesus, identified Himself as the Son of God, and equal to God, was crucified by Romans at the behest of Jewish religious leaders, and died on a cross between two other criminals. That's the story behind the top rock. 

If the story had ended there, we wouldn't have heard any more about Him. There were many others through centuries before and after who said similar words, died, and never heard about except in scholarly writings or a few who continued to believe.

In Jesus' case, His followers abandoned Him prior to the crucifixion, except for John. John stayed with Mary, Jesus' mother, at the foot of the cross and accepted Jesus' request that John look after Mary as he would his own mother. John accepted the responsibility.

Peter, upon whose faith Jesus had committed to building His church, had denied Him three times in the courtyard while Jesus was being tried and sentenced to crucifixion. None of the others are mentioned during the trials or the crucifixion. Jesus had been abandoned.

Why then are there so many of His followers twenty centuries later?

That's the story behind the second rock. Jesus died the day before a Holy Day. Joseph of Arimathaea requested Pilate give him Jesus' body for burial, and Pilate did so - while giving in to the Jewish religious leadership to post guards to be certain the body was not stolen to match prophesy. It was late in the evening when Joseph took the body, placed it in a rock tomb, with a stone in front of the door. Two Marys saw that happen, and came back after the sabbath was over, early on the first day of the week. 

The tomb was empty, except for the cloth of fine linen Joseph brought to wrap Jesus' body in.

That's a pretty good story, and might have worked for a while, but how many people can believe that a man was crucified and was resurrected? Take an educated man, groomed for leadership, mentored by a leading scholar - could he believe?

Not unless he saw the crucified Jesus himself, as had over forty other people within a short period after the resurrection.

Paul and Thomas are the two that give me the best witnesses to Jesus' resurrection. Two men who did not believe. One who had walked with Jesus for three years, the other who fought to end the belief, even unto death. Both saw Jesus as the risen, gloried, Christ. The long awaited Messiah. The man who walked and preached and had the authority to say what scripture was fulfilled, and what was written inexactly from God's inspiration. The authority to shorten the Ten Commandments, delete observations of the Sabbath, and declare He was the promise of God.

Yes. I believe God, as the singular creator, exists (Genesis 1:1, John 1:1-3); that He fulfilled scripture is so many ways that we did not expect (Genesis 22:8); that He inspired scripture to the point that from the Tanakh people would understand Paul's teaching the Resurrection (Acts 17:11); that God inspired scripture (II Timothy 3:16); that it was written so that we might believe (John 20:31.)

There it is - without scripture until the penultimate paragraph. The last paragraph of a business letter is supposed to layout the next step in the process. From here I would hope you have a little Berean in you and you would want to check out what I said, whether the things I've written were correct. That is the first step toward following Christ - check out what has been said about Him by those who knew Him, those who rejected Him, and those who serve Him now. All of that is handed to you, easily available for the reading. Take the first step - then the next is deciding to continue on the strait and narrow road He offers. Do you have it in you do so so?