Homily for Ordinary Time 24 - September 16, 2018

Homily for Ordinary Time 24

September 16, 2018

The Case for Christ

            In the late 1970s, a journalist named Lee Strobel was at a crossroads. He was born and raised an atheist, and his wife was one as well. But one night as they were dining out, their daughter began choking. Panicked, they looked around the room for help, and a nurse happened to be there. She quickly performed the Heimlich maneuver and the girl was saved.

            That nurse began a friendship with Lee’s wife, and through that influence, his wife became a Christian. Lee, however, was staunch in his atheism. He thought that Christianity was a thing of legends and myths. He was challenged, however, by a friend who told him to examine the evidence. As a journalist at the Chicago Tribune, he knew all about examining evidence – cold, hard facts. So he began a years-long journey examining the facts about the claims of Christianity.

            First, he had to examine who Jesus said He was. As CS Lewis put it, Jesus is either “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic”. He clearly claimed to be God, as we sort-of see in today’s Gospel. We read Mark’s version of this event, but Matthew takes the same event and spells it out more clearly – Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” in Matthew’s account. So, when pressed about the identity of Jesus, His disciples acknowledge Him as God. And Jesus does not deny it! He accepts it and calls Peter “blessed” for understanding this about Him.

            If a person claims to be something outrageous – like a man claiming to be a ham sandwich (or in today’s society, a man claiming to be a woman…) – we have every right to challenge that claim. If you say you are a ham sandwich, prove it! If you claim to be God, prove it!

            Did Jesus do the sorts of things that God does? He was able to do some remarkable miracles – healing the sick, multiplying bread and fish, walking on water, casting out demons. But many prophets and patriarchs did similar miracles. These miracles alone do not prove Christ’s divinity.

            But there was one miracle par excellence which proves His divinity – the Resurrection. Never before, and never since, has a man raised himself from the dead. We can believe in the Resurrection for several reasons.

            First, there is the empty tomb – no one has ever claimed to have found Christ’s Body. Second, all four Gospels testify to it – and the Gospels were historical documents written by eyewitnesses! In fact, the Gospels tell us that after Christ’s Resurrection, Jesus ate and drank, and was seen by over 500 people.

            It is highly unlikely that these witnesses could all have mass hallucination. These were hard-headed fishermen, farmers, and laborers, not dreamers and hippies.

Besides, the twelve main men who saw the Resurrection – the Apostles – paid for it dearly. All of the Apostles except for John were martyred, killed for proclaiming that Jesus is Risen. Who would die for a lie? No one. Consider, too, that all of the Apostles except for John, upon Jesus’ death, ran away in terror. How could these fearful men, hiding to save their own skins, only fifty days later be transformed into bold and courageous preachers? Peter went from denying he even knew Jesus to being the first one on Pentecost Sunday to declare that He is risen. Something must have happened that changed him – and that something is that he met the Risen Lord!

Now, all of this is evidence, not proof. No one can prove a historical event in the same way we can prove a math equation or a science experiment. But the historical record shows a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that Jesus is truly God.

What did that mean for Lee Strobel? After two years of searching, seeking out facts and truth, he came to the conclusion that Jesus truly is God, and he became a baptized Christian. What does this mean for us? Two things.

First, consider how absolutely unique and phenomenal it is that God – the very same God who created the universe, the all-holy One whom angels worship on bended knee – this God became a human. He ate, drank, slept, got hurt…He is one of us. We should be in awe of this mystery! God is intimate, close, fully human in Jesus Christ.

Second, since Jesus is God, we have an obligation to follow Him. CS Lewis said that when confronted with Jesus, there were only three reactions in Scripture: hatred, terror, or adoration. No one just gives Him mild approval; no one says “meh” when confronted with the radical possibility that this Man, Jesus Christ, is God among us. If we really knew Jesus, who He is and who He claimed to be, we would be forced to either love Him wholeheartedly or reject Him completely. There is no middle ground. Let us love Him wholeheartedly, then!