Article - The Lost Tomb of Christ?

The Lost Tomb of Christ?

This week “60 Minutes” featured a story from Tara Brown about the latest controversy surrounding an alleged discovery of the tomb of Jesus. Media hype has been fuelled by a documentary by film-maker James Cameron which argues that bones found in 10 ossuaries — small caskets used to store bones — may belong to Jesus Christ and a number of His associates.

Cameron’s documentary has been widely criticized by scholars world-wide, with even the experts who worked on the film expressing doubt that the tomb is the tomb of Jesus. Shimon Gibson, who was featured in the 60 Minutes report, has been quoted as saying "Personally, I'm skeptical that this is the tomb of Jesus and I made this point very clear to the filmmakers".[1] Just doing a basic search on the internet reveals the overwhelmingly critical response from archaeologists and scholars who specialise in Middle Eastern history.

Stephen Pfann, a scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem made an insightful comment when he said "I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this, but skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear."

It has been widely asserted that throughout history religion has promoted an “unscientific” worldview which represses genuine scientific enquiry. Some people think that Science and Religion are like oil and water –they just don’t mix. Some go further and assume that there must be a tension between the two – that Science will one day overcome the ‘need’ for Religion or that Religion (that is, religious extremism) will plunge us back into another ‘dark age’ where freedom of expression, thought and enquiry are no longer tolerated. That might seem far-fetched, but there are some places in the world that operate like this even today.

However, many people have come to appreciate that Science and Religion can be greatly enriched by one another. Certainly, the bible contains many “scientific” observations and reflections which are in harmony with it’s teachings about things which cannot be dealt with in a scientific manner. For example, you can observe the incredible complexity of creation through scientific observation, and you can grow to understand the mechanisms of our physical Universe, but none of that answers the question of whether there is a Creator or not. That is a decision which you make on the basis of the evidence. The evidence does not make the decision for you, it merely informs you.

We need to recognise, though, that we are not purely rational beings. We do not make decisions based on evidence and reasoning alone. We each are impacted by our motives, emotions, personal histories, present environment and so on. The Bible goes one step further (warning - this might freak out people who have a purely “scientific” mindset) to say that there is are spiritual beings who seek to influence us. That’s a huge subject which I would be happy to answer questions about if you are interested!

If you look at modern advertising techniques, you will find that very rarely do advertisers attempt to get you to buy their product by providing evidence as to why that is a good choice. Rather, they try to hook in to your emotions to create a positive feeling that you associate with their product. They have discovered that this is far more persuasive than a rational approach.

People who for whatever reason seek to undermine Christianity know that all they need to do is create an image of credibility to the impression that the key elements of Christianity have been ‘disproven’. Most people would prefer to believe that is the case, because if it’s true that Jesus really did rise from the dead, maybe His promise of returning is also true. Maybe that stuff about sin and judgement, the need for forgiveness and the promise of eternal life is also true - but that means we are no longer safe to ignore God. We need to be prepared to meet Him.

You are free to believe what you like, but does what you believe stack up with the evidence? Have you bothered to find out? I believe the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus – as well as the reliability of the Bible in general – is extremely compelling. Are you willing to check it out?

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[1] “Jesus tomb film scholars backtrack”, Etgar Lefkovits, The Jerusalem Post Apr 11, 2007

Sermon - Church for Real Men

Church for Real Men

Father’s Day 2007

Introduction – A Real Man

Some of you may remember this story from last Christmas, but for the sake of those who weren’t there, I’m going to tell it again. It’s the story of a father, and what a father’s love has caused him to do.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedalled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

“He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,'' Dick says he was told. “There's nothing going on in his brain.''

“Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!'' Rick was then enrolled in his local public school.

After a high school classmate was paralysed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.'' Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. “Dad,'' he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

“No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyt's weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four gruelling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii.

Last year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 – only 35 minutes off the world record.

“No question about it,'' Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.''

Watch Team Hoyt video

Today we are talking about what it means to be a “Real Man”. When you think about the “Real Men” that you have known, what sort of qualities are you thinking about? What is it that makes a man a “real man”?

And where are you likely to find a real man? Do you find him sitting in a pew or out on a football field?

Yesterday I got to attend my first ever live AFL match. The West Coast Eagles v. Essendon at Subiaco Oval. Fantastic! I want to show you a video clip of one player in the AFL who is widely regarded as a real man – Brisbane’s Jonathan Brown. (The video quality isn’t great, but you’ll get the idea!)

Watch Jonathan Brown video

2 Timothy 1:7 says:

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

I’m going to ask you to do something that might seem a little strange, but it will be worth it. I want you to talk to the person next to you about how the men in the videos we have seen so far have shown qualities of power, love and self-discipline. You’ve got 1 minute!

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OK, now that you’ve identified those qualities in Dick Hoyt and in Jonathan Brown, let’s start thinking about our lives, and how this Scripture comments on the way we live.

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

Paul writes this sentence to a young man who has great gifts and a great heritage. He has what is needed in order to be a man of godly influence. He has been called and equipped by God to be a teacher and leader in the Church.

Yet Paul knows that having the ability is one thing, putting it into practice is quite another.

On Monday and Tuesday I was participating in a Ministry Life Skills course with a group of fellow Ministers. By the way, the term “life skills” is just another way of saying “wisdom”. The Hebrew word for wisdom literally means “skilled living”.

One of the things that we looked at during the course was the internal voices that we listen to. One holds us back, and the other gives us confidence to act.

We did a number of activities that required us to share ideas or to take leadership, but we saw that most of us tended to hold ourselves back. We might have had an idea of how to solve the problem, but we didn’t speak up because we didn’t want to seem bossy or arrogant, or we were afraid of being wrong and looking silly. So the confident ones did all the speaking while the quiet ones just let them take the lead. Timothy was probably one of these quiet ones, and Paul knew that he had the wisdom and the spiritual gifting to speak and to lead, but he lacked the confidence to actually step up and do it.

Timothy needed to start listening to the right voice. Not his voice of caution, hesitation and self doubt – he needed to listen to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of power.

When people are trapped by their own timidity, it is very easy for them to make excuses about that. They don’t speak up in a group because the loud ones never listen to them anyway. They don’t take the lead because that would be pushing yourself forward instead of being humble. They resent those people who are confident enough to do what they would like to do, but they tell themselves that they are more spiritual because they are being more submissive and quicker to listen and slower to speak and so on. In fact, because we so often speak on self-sacrifice and submission and humility and so on, we can sometimes give the impression that the ideal Christian man or woman is a timid one, instead of one filled with Spiritual power. We make it seem that to be a good Christian man you should be a wimp, but men were made to want to be powerful.

Men, I want to remind you today that you are called to be spiritually powerful.

Proverbs 28:1 says:

The wicked man flees though no one pursues,

but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

What is that going to look like in your life?

Let me start off by talking about what it looks like in my life…

I have certain things that I am good at doing and some things that I don’t feel that I do well. I have things that I like doing, and things that I do not enjoy doing. There are things about myself that I am comfortable about, and there are things about myself that I don’t feel so secure about. We are all like that.

When I am thinking about what I will do, am I going to choose the things I like doing or the things I don’t like doing? Will I choose the things that I enjoy of the things I don’t? Will I choose the things that make me feel confident or the things I am nervous about?

In 2 Corinthians 12: 8-10, the Apostle Paul tells some of his own story:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ^ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ^ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

How do these verses relate to my situation?

First of all, it tells me that I must not rely on my own strengths in order to fulfill the ministry that God has called me to. That principle is true for me and for you. How often do we stick to what we feel confident doing, and fail to step out in faith believing that God will work through us even in areas that we feel completely inadequate in? We need to be bold in our strengths and in our weaknesses. “It’s not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord” – Zech. 4:6

2 Timothy 4:5 says:

But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

The duties of my ministry that I feel OK about doing are things like teaching groups of all ages, leading youth and children’s activities, writing articles and web pages and all the stuff that I can do by myself.

What I struggle most to do is to relate to adults in certain situations. In a meeting where I don’t have a specific role, I am one of the people who think a lot about what they should say but don’t actually speak up and say it. If I try once and someone speaks over me, then that’s it for the rest of the meeting! You guys don’t see that side of me so much, because as your Pastor I have a definite role to play, but in other situations it’s very different.

I’m not confident in making friends, and I think more in terms of tasks than in terms of people. I’m not someone who others feel a natural liking for or loyalty toward. People often feel like it’s hard to really get to know me. That can be a handicap in my role.

Ephesians 4:11-12 says:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, ^to prepare God’s people for works of service

Given my natural strengths, what part of preparing you guys for works of service will I emphasize and what will I neglect?

I will emphasis the teaching side, but I will tend to neglect the coming alongside, challenging and encouraging part of it. I will work hard in ministry and wonder why some people do not feel the same sense of enthusiasm or responsibility, but I will often not ask them personally why this is the case.

How about for you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are the duties that God has called you to? What parts of that are you neglecting and what parts are you doing well?

I have a couple of suggestions for you as you think about this:

First of all you will need to remember that you are in a spiritual battle, and therefore you need to be spiritually prepared. You need the self-discipline to make sure that your lifestyle is fitting for someone who is a warrior. You need to keep spiritually strong. You need to keep spiritually focussed. We talked last week about not getting distracted by civilian affairs. You need to put that teaching into practice.

Secondly, you need to stop listening to your own voice or to other people’s voices that hold you back from being and doing what God has called you to be and do. Don’t give in to fear. Stand firm for what you believe in and are committed to.

What are some examples of this?

How are you exercising spiritual leadership in your home? It’s not as though you need to be the one who drives every “spiritual” activity, but are you taking the initiative to have healthy disciplines in your home? Do you show an eagerness to discuss spiritual matters? Do you pray with your family?

How are you using the spiritual gifts that God has given you? Are you confident in the area of service that God has called you to? How are you growing in skill in your service?

What happens when your sporting club or social circle schedules activities on Sunday mornings? Do you tell them that you are unavailable at those times, or do you stay silent? Do you act embarrassed of church, or do people sense that you are deeply committed to your faith and your church family? I am certainly not saying that we should not be flexible so we are free to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit, but have we gone past flexible so that pretty much anything qualifies as a reason to miss church? Do you see our Sunday services as essential team training for the battle that we are in?

Do not wimp out of the Christian life. Do not wimp out of the role that God has called you to play in this church family. We need you. The next generation of Christians needs a healthy church to inherit. This community needs a healthy church to witness to it, even though it will always make it tough for you to stay committed.

Are you up to the challenge, men? There are plenty of reasons for you to opt out, or is this church going to be a church for real men?