What if Jesus is a lie?

Reflection

What if Jesus is a lie is not a new question, it has been asked since the earliest days of the church, and it deserves a serious answer rather than a defensive one. If the resurrection did not happen, Paul himself said the Christian faith is futile and believers are to be pitied more than anyone. Christianity has never asked people to believe on the basis of feeling alone, it stakes its claims on an event in history that either happened or did not. The alternative explanations, that the disciples stole the body, or hallucinated, or simply invented the whole story, have all been examined at length by historians of every persuasion, and none accounts easily for the disciples' willingness to suffer and die for what they claimed to have witnessed. That does not remove the need for personal faith, but it does mean the question is a fair one worth investigating honestly rather than dismissing from either side without genuine thought.

Questions to sit with

• Have you ever seriously examined the historical case for or against the resurrection?
• What would it mean for your own life if the resurrection turned out to be true?
• Why do you think this particular claim provokes such strong reactions?

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