Fourthly we have the experience of Christians such as myself: Countless millions of Christians have experienced the risen Jesus in their own lives—I have!  People who have experienced the risen Jesus in their lives come from every nationality, ethnicity, continent, economic, social and intellectual background. Yet all these people can come together and say yes, I have experienced Jesus in my life.

Millions of people all over the world today are experiencing what it is like to have a relationship with the risen Jesus and I myself have experienced his love, care for me and the reality of his power in my life, a reality that convinces me that he is actually alive.  Jesus is not someone to speak about in the past tense.   We look in more detail over the next few weeks how you can know that reality, if you haven’t already experienced it.

The evidence that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead is extensive and as we saw earlier when you look at what Jesus said about himself we are faced with only three logical possibilities.—either he was and is the Son of God or else he was deluded or someone really quite evil and dangerous.  But if we look at his character, his teachings, his fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and his resurrection from the dead, we are faced with a startling alternative.  As C.S Lewis wrote “Either Jesus was and is exactly what he said, or else he was insane or something worse. However strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.”

All of this may seem overwhelming and a lot to take in and if you would like to examine all of this further I have brought a great little book that you can take a look at.

Lee Strobel is a Yale law grad who became an investigative journalist with the Chicago Tribune investigating scams by the mafia.  Then once day his wife became a Christian and he was annoyed by this that he decided to investigate the evidence for Christianity and write an article for the paper exposing it as a scam…..but ended up being convinced the evidence was true, and writing The Case for Christ.

Great book to read, and part of the optional readings for this course.

Question: Why did Jesus offer himself as a sacrifice, and not just change the rules?  We’ll explore answers on Day 33.

Read John 17-18 and reflect – Who is Jesus trying to help, by going through such agony?