“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip. King David said this about him: ‘I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave. You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.’ “Dear brothers, think about this! You can be sure that the patriarch David wasn’t referring to himself, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on his throne. David was looking into the future and speaking of the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that God would not leave him among the dead or allow his body to rot in the grave. “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today. For David himself never ascended into heaven, yet he said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.”’ “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
Acts 2:22-36

Dear God, I read an essay from The Wall Street Journal today about how we try to water some things down about Christianity, including Jesus’s resurrection. But you can’t water down the resurrection. You can discount it. You have to deal with it. Either you believe in it or you don’t. Either these men and women were crazy, liars, or telling the truth. For liars and lunatics, they certainly were consistent in their story and went to their deaths defending the lie.

In this passage, Peter makes it very clear that the resurrection is part of the deal with Jesus. He compares him with David with Jesus, but says that while David “dies and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us…God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this.” The resurrection is real. It happened. And if we don’t believe everyone back then was telling the truth then we have to embrace the idea that they were either liars or insane. And when you start looking at what their possible motivations could be to lie about Jesus—Fame? Power? Wealth?—and realize the defense of the lie only led to torture, pain, and premature death (except for John) the idea of them lying about this across the board becomes pretty thin.

Father, my prayer tonight is that I would not water down my faith. I know that parts of my theology are wrong. The problem is that I just don’t know which parts are wrong. I do know, however, that you love me. You sent Jesus to be a bridge between my continued sinfulness and depravity and your holiness and purity. He lived. He taught. He loved. He suffered. He died. He rose again. His life changed the world. Thank you for that. Help me to hear with your ears and see with your eyes as I consider what I am to do at any given moment. All for your glory, my Lord and my God.

I pray all of this in Jesus’s name,

Amen