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WHAT A SAVIOR! #12

A STING AGAINST THE SAVIOR

Have you ever heard of a fake faith healer? We get a mental picture of the TV evangelist with a white linen suit and lots of hairspray on, and also a little wireless earpiece, where a hidden studio technician whispers hints to him while he’s on stage. “There’s a guy in row eight, red shirt, who’s got crutches. We gave him fifty bucks and he’s ready to come up on stage and be ‘healed’ if you give him the word, boss.” That kind of thing.

Here are a couple of celebrated stories from the world of politics where a candidate for high office seemingly just set HIMSELF up for a catastrophic fall. To get found out for being phony and false. Maybe you remember in 1987 where a bright, progressive senator named Gary Hart faced hints and whispers that he was a womanizer. With his chin jutting out, he bravely said to reporters from the New York Times:

“Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.”

At the time, he was flying high in the polls for the 1988 Democratic nomination. Reagan was retiring after two successful terms, so the field was wide open. The Iowa Nielsen numbers had Gary Hart way out in front. But now, with this gossip buzzing around, he flatly told people: “There’s nothing to it. Follow me around. Tap my phones. Because I’m clean as clean can be.”

He immediately went home and spent a weekend in his Washington townhouse with a young lady not his wife. Reporters from the Miami Herald had been staking the place out, and essentially caught him red-handed. Miami’s rival reporters in New York accused the Florida boys of “hiding in the dark, listening for squeaking bedsprings,” but there was no denying that this was a hot story. Then at the worst possible moment, the notorious photo emerged, showing model Donna Rice sitting on married presidential candidate Gary Hart’s lap aboard the pleasure yacht, Monkey Business. And within one week, this gifted statesman’s lifelong dream of being President was dashed into a million pieces. He’d made a claim that couldn’t be sustained. It was simply too easy to check out.

Ironically, in that same 1988 Presidential race, another promising Democrat threw his hat into the crowded ring as well, only to have embarrassing headlines spit it back out. Joseph Biden, senator from Delaware, showed a lot of promise. Then it surfaced that he was used to borrowing from other people’s speeches in making his own. When one of his campaign addresses mirrored almost word-for-word a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock – and when reporters got a hold of it – it was just too much. Wordsmiths and sleuths soon discovered that Biden was essentially a serial plagiarist, going all the way back to his law school years. He, too, sank like a stone in the polls, paying a costly price for his transgressions, and George H. W. Bush, “Bush the Elder,” went on to easily beat Michael Dukakis, the eventual Democratic nominee who emerged from the splintered primary season.

Well, friend, what does this have to do with our extended study of Jesus the Messiah? Did the Carpenter from Nazareth sometimes make impressive claims, unsubstantiated campaign promises that would be easy to check on and refute?

We’ve gotten some keen insights from a number of sources during this series on the character and claims of Jesus, and one of the best has been the book, Ready With an Answer, by John Ankerberg and John Welton. They, in turn, take a paragraph from author James Sire, who writes about the many “campaign statements” of Jesus during His years of ministry. This is from his volume, Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All?

“[Jesus] presented a consistent picture of God, Himself, and others. When liars elaborate or answer the same kinds of questions repeatedly, they are easily caught in inconsistencies. There is in Jesus a unity of teaching: the stories, the clever sayings, the constant compassion for people, the obvious wisdom of His teaching, the ethical depth of both His teaching and His character. No fault could be found in Him. At His trial, His accusers contradicted themselves, but Jesus stood at His trial with the same integrity as He did on city streets.”

Have you ever noticed on TV dramas like Law and Order how the prosecuting attorneys go after a defendant with the same rapid-fire litany of questions over and over? They come at them from the left, the right, and the middle, high, low, and backwards, hoping to eventually slice through the web of lies. On sitcoms it’s often a source of rich humor to watch a desperate Frasier Crane trying to hold a preposterous story together for even half an hour. But in Jesus’ years of ministry, with many, many sermons “on the record,” with all of His parables, His teaching, His off-the-cuff visits with lawyers, priests, disciples, common folk . . . there’s no evidence that Jesus ever lied or fabricated.

What’s more – and this is a huge point – you simply cannot find an incident in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John where Jesus said He could or would do something . . . and then later failed. Have you thought about that?

In the Gospel of John, we find a classic story where it would have been easy to trap an imposter christ, a fake. Keep in mind that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day would have loved nothing better than to nail this Man from Galilee with fraud, with making false statements. In fact, that was the core of their eventual case against Him before Pilate. “He said, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I can build it up again.’” That’s not a true accounting, not accurate . . . but Jesus’ enemies were obviously looking. They had staked out His favorite hangouts, and bribed “stringers” from the Jerusalem Post to help in any possible sting operation.

Now to the story. John chapter five – and a royal officer, probably a man in King Herod’s service, came to see Jesus. “Come to Capernaum and heal my son,” the lieutenant begged. “Hurry, come down before he dies.”

And the Savior takes a huge risk:

“Jesus replied, ‘You may go. Your son will live.’”

Jesus doesn’t even go to Capernaum! He simply dials it in – “Your son will live” – and then calmly goes about His business.

Now think about this. What if the son hadn’t gotten well? What if the official had started home, then met his own servants on the road to Capernaum, and they had said to him, “We’re sorry, sir . . . but it’s over. Your boy died three hours ago”? The credibility of Jesus would have been ruined forever.

Ankerberg and Weldon point out that Jesus healed several people “long-distance.” A centurion’s servant was at death’s door, and Jesus boldly said to the Roman, “Go on home. He’s fine.” Sure enough. He said to a Canaanite woman whose child was demon-possessed, “Go on home. No problem. Your request is granted.”

When Jesus heard that His friend Lazarus was sick, He deliberately waited two more days, then traveled calmly to Bethany and raised him from the dead. Imagine the scandal, the buzz, if He had gone to the grave site and then failed in a highly publicized resurrection attempt, with all the TV cameras going and Matt Drudge there to file his Internet report. His career as a Messiah would have ended on the spot. He told Peter to go to Galilee and catch a fish; the first one in his net would have a coin for the temple taxes. He told His followers to drop their fishing nets here or there, and it always brought in a record haul. Not that the kingdom of God depends on buckets full of fish, but friend, it simply goes to demonstrate that if there was any way for this Messiah campaign to falter and fail, it most certainly could have. But Jesus Christ was legitimately who and what He claimed to be. Ankerberg and Weldon conclude, referring to the Lazarus miracle:

“How easy it would have been for something like this to be proved wrong and for the word to get out that the foolish Jesus tried to raise the dead but couldn’t. But no one could deny that these things really happened.”

I think how it must have felt to be one of the staff members for those two shredded presidential campaigns. You put your faith in a man, and he lies. He cheats. He plagiarizes. And his failure hurts YOU. Friend, what we find here in the Good Book is that Jesus is a Leader we can count on. I know, and you know, that His promises come right into your home. You’re counting on Him, and so am I! Jesus promises to bring back our loved ones. He promises us a home in heaven. He promises us that His Father and all the angels and the Holy Spirit are supremely interested in our well-being. It would not be a good thing if we were to find out that Jesus was a fake! That He couldn’t do all the things He’s claimed He can do.

That’s why we keep saying in this radio series, “This good news is OUR good news.” The legitimacy of Jesus’ Messiahship, the validity of His deity . . . those great headlines come right into our living rooms and into our hearts. And by the way, speaking of Presidential races, just imagine how we’re going to feel on heaven’s Inauguration day.