This Sermon Gets an "F"

I once heard noted theologian R. C. Sproul describe a sermon he heard as a high schooler that covered Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000. The sermon’s punchline was that there was not really any miracle at all because Jesus manipulated circumstances to make the event appear supernatural.

This is how he allegedly did it. There was a large cave behind the site of Jesus’ planned sermon, and the day before the big event, Jesus and his disciples secretly stashed food in the cave so they could bring it out to simulate a miracle. The key to this trick was Jesus’ robe with its long flowing sleeves. At just the right moment, Jesus stood in front of the cave-turned-pantry while the disciples secretly slipped food up the back of his robe and out through his sleeves. Voila! A miracle!

In my book That’s a Great Question:  What to Say When Your Faith Is Challenged, I describe five mental filters used by people who don’t really believe the Bible to make it say what they wish it said. One of the filters that subtracts from the Bible is the Filter of Antisupernaturalism, which states that since miracles can’t happen, there must be a naturalistic explanation.

This sermon’s preposterous theory clearly falls into this category and suffers from three fatal flaws:

1. Besides gutting the story of any miraculous content, it also ignores an important detail recorded in Mark 6:41:  Jesus gave just the five loaves and two fish – and not all the food for the thousands – to the disciples. So apparently the miracle took place as the disciples distributed the food to the crowd. The “all the food slipped up through Jesus’ robe” theory contradicts the text and feeds into the next flaw.

2. Pulling this off would require absurdly laughable logistics. How long would it have taken for all the food to come up through Jesus’ robe? Remember, there were 5,000 men and an untold number of women and children – probably 10,000+ in total. Imagine catering a fish and bun luncheon for over 10,000 people! How many hours would it take for literally thousands of food items to pass through Jesus’ sleeves?  As stated above, what really happened is that the disciples fanned out to feed the thousands, multiplying the “distribution channels” and greatly reducing the time required.

   Also, how could the disciples have bought and paid for all that food and carted it up to the cave – undoubtedly requiring many trips – undetected?  Getting such huge quantities at one time would certainly have been noticed, allowing onlookers to blow the whistle on the alleged but false miracle.

3. The most serious flaw, though, is that, if that pastor is right, Jesus is a despicable deceiver. One of the most famous theological propositions of the 20th Century is C. S. Lewis’ “trilemma” in which he states that since Jesus clearly claimed to be God, you have only three choices: 

• He was God – in which case you’d better acknowledge him in your life

• He wasn’t God but didn’t know it – in which case he was insane

• He wasn’t God and he knew it – in which case he was a liar and a fraud

Since this ridiculous theory was proposed by a mainline Protestant minister, he presumably bears some allegiance to Jesus or else he would have chosen a different career path. I can’t know for sure what he thought of Jesus, but my guess is that he would have considered him a great inspirational teacher and someone to emulate. Unfortunately, according to Lewis, that option is not open. Why should you trust someone that blatantly deceptive? We’re forced to select one of the three possibilities Lewis offers.

Think about it. Instead of being able to embrace Jesus in all his deity, this minister would rather deny the miraculous and relegate Jesus to the company of tricksters and conmen. Is that a Jesus you want to worship?

So, I give this sermon an “A” in creativity, a “C+” in fidelity to the biblical text, and an “F” in theology.

My message to you is, don’t blindly accept every “take” on Jesus you hear, even if it comes from an allegedly respectable source.

Is Seeing Really Believing? Not Always

As the old saying goes, “There is none so blind as the one who will not see.” Two stories I recently read in my Chronological Study Bible made me stop in my tracks. One describes a fascinating aspect of Jesus’ arrest, and the other concerns the apostles’ imprisonment right as the church was starting.

You may recall that, as Jesus is being arrested, impulsive Peter takes it upon himself to try to defend Jesus and ends up cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Luke reports that Jesus touches the man’s ear and heals him. Piece of cake.

Imagine you either are in the crowd sent by the chief priests, teachers of the law and elders or are one of the Roman soldiers sent to arrest Jesus. You just saw a man get his ear hacked off and Jesus miraculously restore it. What do you make of that? Isn’t that a bit unusual? Don’t you think that would make you conclude maybe Jesus isn’t an ordinary man and you should reconsider your role in arresting him? Apparently, it had little impact on the crowd. As far as we know, despite what they saw with their own eyes, they all stayed the course.

The other story is in Acts 5. Just as the church is launching, the religious establishment’s jealousy leads them to arrest and jail the apostles. After an angel miraculously releases the Christians, members of the Sanhedrin are perplexed when they discover they had vanished from the cell. “’We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside’” (Acts 5:23). After discovering the apostles in the temple court, the Sanhedrin hauls them in again to further interrogate them. Even though they want to kill them, the religious leaders settle for “just” a flogging.

Think about that. The apostles are thrown into a Roman jail, secured by professionally trained guards, and yet they somehow escape. Even David Copperfield couldn’t pull that one off. What explanation is there for this other than that God did it? You would think the apostles’ disappearance would cause the church’s enemies to reconsider their opposition. Amazingly, it doesn’t. Notice they don’t deny that it happened. They just hate it. In this case, seeing is not believing.

In Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, after his death, the rich man realizes his cataclysmic error of living apart from God and begs that the righteous Lazarus (who has also died) be sent back to the living to warn the rich man’s brothers. This request is denied because “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31). A truer statement was never spoken. Remember that Jesus brought at least three people back from the dead, and he himself also rose triumphantly. Yet, despite these irrefutable acts, the spiritually blind religious leaders persisted in their unbelief and opposition to the faith.  

Here is one of my favorite sayings:  “The same sun that melts wax hardens clay.” The endpoint isn’t determined by the external force (in this case the sun); rather, the result is governed by what is being acted upon. Whether God’s grace melts or hardens someone’s hearts depends on what’s inside it.

These stories help me understand why so many deny the certainties of God’s truths and the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection that made our return to God possible. Those folks are spiritually blind. I don’t say this with an ounce of arrogance or glee. I spent many years there myself, and it was only God’s grace that opened my eyes. But this realization does motivate me to want to help them come to understand God’s incredible forgiveness and grace.

Three action points:

1. If you have come to know Jesus, you should live each day with gratitude that he touched your heart and melted the hardness.

2. As you discuss the reality of Jesus’ love with others, do so out of love without any sense of judgment. Would you ever chastise a physically blind person because they are unable to see?

3. Examine yourself and ask God to point to any areas of your life where you might be harboring some lingering spiritual blindness.

Let’s all ask God to use us to minimize spiritual blindness wherever we find it.