By JAMES REINEBACH
Imagine two retired High Desert dwellers. The wife is standing at her kitchen window. The husband is watching an eye witness live TV news show about a cop killer trapped in a burning house.
“Did they catch that guy yet?” she says.
“They’re pretty sure he’s in this house,” the husband says.
“Pretty sure is not good enough for me,” the wife says. “That’s Big Bear!”
Suddenly, the wife stares in disbelief as she watches a roadrunner hop onto the back of a coyote right in her back yard. The wife shouts, “Honey, come quick! There’s a road runner standing on the back of a coyote in our back yard! National Geographic will love this!”
“Dear,” the husband says, “it can’t be a real coyote. Coyotes eat roadrunners if they can catch one.”
The wife says, “I’m telling you, I’m watching them with my own two eyes.”
She grabs her camera and shoots a picture. The husband walks into the kitchen, too late to see the critters disappear into the brush.
“See,” he says, “it was all in your imagination.”
But, the man’s wife is about to prove him wrong, because, she has the picture.
“Hey,” you say. “Why doesn’t that stupid husband just believe his wife? “ After all, she actually saw what she saw, and she has a picture to prove it! That’s all the evidence he needs, right? But, if the wife is telling the truth, why does the husband need a picture? Isn’t her eye witness enough?
Let’s relate this to faith in Jesus. Do you have to see to believe?
On resurrection Sunday, eye witness women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others, told the eleven male disciples what they recorded on several “human eye cameras.” But, their words seemed to the men like idle tales, and they did not believe them. (Luke 24:9-11) That night Jesus proved to the men that the women were telling the eye witness truth.
The next Sunday, one week later, Jesus made his second appearance to His disciples and told doubting Thomas, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29-31) Thomas became an eye witness, but he had first denied the eyewitness accounts of every person who had seen Jesus. Doubt dies hard sometimes. How about your doubts about Jesus?
Years later, the Apostle Peter, who had actually denied his Lord, and who had also doubted the women’s eye witness, made a major statement about faith. “Whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see Him, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the goal of your faith — the salvation of your souls!” (1 Peter 1:7-9) Do people need to see to believe or do they need to believe to see?
Jesus’ Apostle Peter said faith without sight is “more precious than gold,” and is the key to eternal life. Peter was the foremost spokesman for Jesus 50 days after the resurrection. Could he have forgotten or lied about what happened less than two months before, and then made all the other disciples stick by his story ‘til death? He told large crowds that they had murdered the Lord of Glory with their own wicked hands. (Acts 2:22-36) Peter also told the crowd that he was an eye witness to Jesus’ resurrection. By this huge preaching risk Peter won many to Christ, though he knew he would eventually be murdered for Jesus’ sake (John 21:18-23).
And Peter says there is even better evidence than the wife’s picture at the start of this article. Something better than the Apostles’ eye witness to the resurrection or your own eyewitness is this! God Himself is the number one truth teller and eye witness! God already told us about the death and resurrection of Jesus in the Bible, long before it ever happened! Jesus also emphasized this truth on that first resurrection Sunday night in Luke 24:25-27; 44-48.
Jesus showed them his hands, feet, and side, and ate food with his disciples. But then said they were slow to believe what God’s Prophets had said. So, the foremost proof of Christ’s resurrection is that God promised and prophesied it as His way to give us eternal life by faith alone. That evidence is God’s Word, in print for all to see in the Bible. May God bless you as you believe in His resurrected Son!
James Reinebach is a High Desert resident and the former pastor of Calvary Bible Church of Lucerne Valley.