God Has Shown Himself – April 12, 2021

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
John 20:19,20

God Has Shown Himself

Let me tell you a story. As two explorers slashed their way through the jungle, they reached a clearing that held a small garden. The garden’s beauty and order suggested that someone was taking care of it, but there were also many weeds. One explorer said, “A gardener must come and tend the garden.” But the other objected, “There’s no gardener here.”

To settle the question, they pitched a tent and watched, but no one came. The first explorer said, “There is a gardener, but maybe he is invisible.” So they set up an electric fence around the garden and patrolled it with bloodhounds, but still, they detected nothing.

Finally, the first explorer said, “There must be a gardener. But he is invisible, insensible to electric shock, has no scent, and comes in secret to take care of the garden.” The other explorer replied, “Okay, but how is that kind of a gardener different from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all”? The end.

That story was developed by two atheists to show the absurdity of believing in a god. They said that claiming there is a god when you cannot see him is as absurd as claiming there is a gardener in that jungle. Why? Because there are too many qualifications, such as him being invisible and undetectable. The qualifications make the claim impossible to verify, so you cannot determine if it is true.

Some people think that is an effective critique of Christianity, but it is not. Christianity teaches that the invisible God took on human flesh and came to earth. In visible ways, he lived for you and died for you. On the evening of that first Easter, Jesus’ disciples saw God in the flesh, risen from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection is rock-solid evidence that God has entered our world!

Prayer:
Lord God, thank you for showing yourself to the world in order to save the world, including me. Amen.