The Truth Can Be Hard to Believe

I look at the evidence.

I look at what’s there and try to figure out what it means.

Take the story below—much like the one I told last week. Joel Harper is a well-known personal trainer who has appeared on Oprah, ABC News and PBS specials.

He rides a bicycle in New York everywhere he goes. One day he was late for a meeting and biking as fast as he could.

He saw, some 60 ft. in front of him, a father and a little girl. She looked about three. They were playing beside the bike path.

Let Joel tell his story:

“At the exact moment I reached them, the child darted in front of me. I could not stop or even slow down. I knew I would hit her.

But now—I don’t know how to say this.

I didn’t hit her.

My bike and I went through her body.

Just sailed through her body.

I felt I was floating. She went right through me. No one was hurt.

It was a physical thing, but it seemed spiritual.

I stopped to look back. The dad seemed in shock, as was I.

And I was too confused to go back and talk to him.

I know it sounds crazy. I hate to put it into words.

It is beyond words.”

Joel harper

I have other similar accounts. This is God working, but through the laws of nature.

Science tells us all matter exists as both particle and wave. In the wave state, matter is not solid.

Something like this took place in the resurrection. The dead body of Jesus dematerialized.

The burial cloth fell through the body.

The cloth lay flat on the burial slab. That’s the way the disciples found it.

The truth can be hard to believe.

It is still the truth.

As Real as Gravity

A friend said a woman who worked with her had a strange story to tell.

I called the woman.

She and a friend were traveling around England in a hired car. At some point, a lorry (as the English call a truck) pulled out from a side street.

It was just, suddenly, there, right in front of them.

No chance to stop.

No chance, even, to hit the brakes.

But there was no impact.

Their car went right through the truck.

It went through.

One vehicle passed silently through the other.

In a flash, the women saw the inside of the truck.

They saw the red plaid shirt the driver wore.

They couldn’t take it in. Something that could not happen had just happened.

Shaken, confused, they continued their journey.

And it took some courage to even share this story with friends.

It’s—uh—unbelievable.

So, why am I sharing it with you?

Because I have six other accounts like it from all over the world.

And I am looking for more.

I want to talk to a few physicists. (Are there any reading this?)

Whether they believe the accounts or not, I want them to suggest what is happening.

Is this an example of quantum tunnelling?

(Look it up.)

Why am I interested?

First of all, if real, God did it.

Second, something like this, I believe, happened at the resurrection. The body of Jesus dematerialized.

The cloth covering the body fell through the body, leaving the image we now see on the Shroud of Turin.

The resurrection was a quantum event.

Also unbelievable.

But as real as gravity.

Nothing Before Jesus Was Like Jesus

I came across a book called, “What if the Church Were Christian?”

I haven’t read it, but the title speaks to me.

Much of the church is not Christian.

This makes me sad, but I guess it is not surprising. Real Christianity does not come naturally.

In fact, it makes no sense to most people: Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.

Give to those who ask something of you and expect nothing in return.

Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile.

Forgive—always.

Be merciful—always.

What does God want?

Perfection?

Yes, actually. Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

He knows we can’t be perfect. But he sets perfect love for God and for the neighbor as our standard.

Unconditional love is the Christian moral code.

And this moral code was new. There is nothing like it in any other of the ancient religions.

There is nothing like it in any ancient literature.

It came from Jesus.

And Jesus alone.

And it did not sit well with most of those who first heard it. Jesus was too loving. Too forgiving.

Furthermore, he lived what he preached. He ate and worked with people who were outside the salvation system.

Tax collectors (for example) were not even candidates for heaven.

Jesus was a danger to the whole social and religious system of his day.

That’s why the religious leaders of his day made sure he died an ugly death.

And many Christian leaders would make sure he met the same fate today.

I’ll talk more about this Sunday—11:00 a.m.

10 on the “Big Ten” List

Some legislators want The Ten Commandments posted on walls in Texas schoolrooms.

I have a concern about #10. It lists a man’s wife as one of his possessions.

Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s house, or your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

Note that the wife is not first on the list. The house comes first.

But she is (we give thanks) above the ox and the donkey. And just above the slaves. Still, the wife is owned, just like the slaves and the ox and the donkey.

This old attitude remains enshrined in the traditional marriage vow. The father says, “I give this woman to be married to this man.”

Dad passed ownership to the husband, usually with a little money or a few sacks of grain to sweeten the deal.

I’m not sure we want to solidify this image of marriage in the minds of our children. There are too many boys and men who think this way already.

The “Big Ten” are a great and ancient moral code, but they don’t belong on classroom walls.

Nor do the teachings of Jesus, for that matter. Keep church and state separate.

But it is interesting that the legislators pushing The Ten Commandments never suggest posting words from The Sermon on the Mount.

And why not?

They don’t believe them.

Jesus told us to seek no revenge, to love our enemies, and to be kind to those who are unkind to us. The Jesus way is not on the Christian Nationalist agenda. +++

Sermon Sunday: The Double-Minded Christian.

Tune in. I may be talking about you. 11:00 a.m.

Just One Savior

You know, there is something seriously wrong with much of the church.

Not with its Founder.

Jesus was right about God. He preached a unique message of God’s love for all people.

He told us to love even our enemies, because God loves “the ungrateful and the wicked.”

He renounced revenge of all sorts.

Jesus got it right.

So why has the church, almost from the start, gotten so much wrong?

How could someone who claimed to follow Jesus write a revenge epic like the Book of Revelation?

And why did a council of Christians not see that this work teaches the opposite of everything Jesus said?

They put it in the Bible!

And now, along with the God we call Father who loves us all, we have that rough God who sends plagues and dumps bowls of wrath upon us.

And we pay the price.

For 2,000 years many in the church have sponsored inquisitions, crusades, and slavery—in God’s name.

John Calvin had a man killed over doctrine.

My great, great, great grandfather, a Baptist preacher, owned slaves.

When I was growing up, nearly all of the folks in the pews on Sundays were loudly and proudly racist.

And now, it is mostly Christians who follow that man who is morally and spiritually bankrupt.

Why?

How could this be?

Here’s the answer:

Many Christians read the Bible as if all of it reflects Jesus.

It doesn’t.

Revelation and a number of passages in the Old Testament give us the very opposite of Jesus.

I just did a quick count. We have only one Savior.

It’s time for the church to listen to him.