There’s a great scene toward the end of the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indiana comes to the edge of a huge abyss. Some one hundred feet straight across is the entrance to a cave that contains the Holy Grail—he needs to find the Grail quickly in order to save his father’s life. The entrance is cut into the flat rockface that drops hundreds of feet to the ground. Standing at the precipice of this great chasm, all he can see are the jagged rocks hundreds of feet below—one more step, and he will fall to his death.
However, Indiana has a secret guidebook that indicates, in a much too cryptic way for comfort, that there is an invisible bridge leading to the other side. Seeing it, the guidebook says, requires a “leap of faith”. As he sarcastically mutters: “Oh great, a leap of faith!” Indiana braces himself and, with all the courage he can muster, lifts one foot high in the air. Slowly he shifts his weight forward, knowing that there is no turning back. If the bridge isn’t there, he will immediately plunge to his death.
To his great relief, his foot lands on solid rock. As he takes another step, then another, a very substantial bridge, formed out of those same jagged rocks littering the abyss below, comes clearly into view.
It was there all along. But from that precipice, it could never be detected.
The only way to know it was there was to take a leap of faith.
Christianity has always maintained that believing involves a leap of faith. This is because Christian faith is, in essence, a personal encounter. It is an intimate relationship with Jesus, with Someone who, this side of eternity, is unseen, hidden from ordinary, sensory experience.
Therefore, you are placing your life in Someone who, it might turn out, isn’t real.
Jesus may turn out to be like an imaginary friend many of us had as kids. It was comforting to think some ideal friend was always there for you, that you were never alone. But as you grew up, you realized they weren’t real. The risk involved in having a friend in Jesus, is that He may turn out to merely be a figment of your imagination; a fictitious character devised to bring comfort, but, in the end, non-existent.
Millions of Christians throughout the ages have taken this leap of faith and claimed to have encountered Jesus personally, to have found an intimate relationship with the Lord of the Universe. Even though they have yet to know Him fully—face to face—they claim to “know” He’s real because, having taken a leap of faith, they’ve experienced Him.
They know He’s there as sure as Indiana knew that bridge was there the moment his foot felt solid ground.
Even though they can’t see Him yet, they “feel” His presence and support.
But how can you know that this experience isn’t just a figment of the imagination, the product of wishful thinking? How can you be sure that what people think is an experience of Jesus isn’t just the result of some kind of (euphoric) biochemically-induced experience? It could just be the result of having too much caffeine; or indigestion!
Or supposing some “divine”, transcendent reality does exist, how can you be sure that this experience isn’t actually of some other “god”? Maybe it’s Allah or Nirvana, and not Jesus. Or some “higher” reality that the different names the various religions give it are all unsuccessfully groping to grasp.
How can Christians claim that their “knowing” Jesus is any more real than having an imaginary friend?
How can they be sure they aren’t experiencing some other “god”?
Lee Strobel is a graduate of Yale Law School and an award-winning journalist who was for many years the legal affairs editor for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. He happens to not only be very intelligent, but also, very skeptical.
One day, his wife came home and announced that she had become a Christian. Strobel was an avowed atheist. He believed Christianity was a mythical delusion built around a false legend about Jesus. He wanted to prove his wife wrong so they could go back to the happy life they knew before.
For close to two years, he zealously read books, interviewed experts, analyzed history, explored archeology, studied ancient literature, and for the first time in his life, picked apart the Bible verse by verse.
I’ll admit it: I was ambushed by the amount and quality of the evidence that Jesus is the unique Son of God…
Frankly I wanted to believe that the deification of Jesus was the result of legendary development in which well-meaning but misguided people slowly turned a wise sage into the mythological Son of God…But while I went into my investigation thinking that this legendary explanation was intuitively obvious, I emerged convinced it was totally without basis…
In light of the convincing facts I had learned during my investigation, in the face of this overwhelming avalanche of evidence in the case for Christ, the great irony was this: it would require much more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to trust in Jesus of Nazareth!
Strobel had to take a leap of faith at that point, but the evidence alone had gotten him most of the way there: “Yes, I had to take a step of faith, as we do in every decision we make in life. But here’s the crucial distinction: I was no longer trying to swim upstream against the strong current of evidence; instead I was choosing to go in the same direction that the torrent of facts was flowing. That was reasonable, that was rational, that was logical.”
This is how he describes his conversion: “There was no lightning bolts, no audible replies, no tingly sensations. I know that some people feel a rush of emotion at such a moment; as for me, however, there was something else that was equally exhilarating: there was the rush of reason.” (select excepts from the Conclusion of Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998, pp. 259-271.)
Because people define “faith” many ways, before diving into the actual evidence for Christian faith in future blogs, I need to clearly explain what I mean when I talk about faith.
At its core, Christian faith involves a relationship with the unseen God. For that reason, it ultimately requires an act of trust—trusting your life to Someone who you won’t know for certain is real until you die.
But that doesn’t mean faith is just wishful thinking, a shot in the dark, hoping against hope, as divorced from reality as a child’s imaginary friend. Moreover, faith in Jesus isn’t simply or primarily an experience, an intuitive or visceral or powerfully emotional thing. Unfortunately, Christians frequently present it this way; often faith is defined in opposition to reason, as something that transcends or defies reason.
Faith, as I define it, is an act of trust based on the best evidence and logic in the One who—according to the “rush of reason”—is the most trustworthy (ultimate) reality.
I don’t believe despite reason. I believe because of reason.
I believe I’ve encountered Jesus because reason tells me so.
Along with Stobel—and many other Christians—I’m confident that we’re actually encountering the Risen Christ, and not just experiencing indigestion, Nirvana, or a delusion produced by our imaginations, because the best reason and evidence point to Jesus being the Son of God.
Yes, ultimately this encounter with Christ is what faith is all about, so it requires a leap of faith.
But it isn’t a big leap at all.
It’s only a small step—the most rational step based on the evidence.
I’d love to hear what you think about this or any other blog! Please share your comments, questions, and/or feedback by going to the “Contact E.J.” page of this website, or by sharing them on the Raising Jesus Facebook page.
