New Favorites (Easter 2006)

Scripture: Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18


Has anyone ever told you something that you believed to be true, only later to find out that it wasn’t true?

When I was kid I used to collect horse figurines. It started with the horse that came with my cowboy guy that you could move his arms and legs. He looked a lot like Woody from Toy Story before there was a Woody and a Toy Story. Anyway, “Woody’s” horse was the first in my collection of horses which later expanded to about six or so. I liked them for what they were. But I liked them a lot more after my sister told me that they were worth money. My sister, Kristin, one day told me that my horse collection would someday be worth like a million dollars. . . And I believed her. Hey, I was nine years old.

I asked my mom about it later and she said no, my horses were not worth a million dollars, more like nine dollars. She told me Kristin was just playing a joke on me.

I confronted Kristin that evening. I told her there was a word for people like her and that word was “Liar,” and there was a special level in Hell reserved for people who said a boy’s horse collection was worth a lot of money when it really wasn’t and got that boy’s hopes up to be independently wealthy at a young age and God knows that boy didn’t have any money then and I encouraged my sister to pray, pray now for Almighty God’s forgiveness for this most grievous sin of lying. You can tell, even then, I was laying the foundations to become a fine pastor.

There was a lot of hullabaloo a few months ago over author James Frey and his book A Million Little Pieces. It was supposed be a true story that Frey had written of his own experiences. Turns out, he exaggerated a little. . . okay, a lot. Oprah and the whole book club nation were offended. Frey went on the Oprah Winfrey show and “confessed” to Oprah, who then grudgingly pronounced absolution. Don’t mess with Oprah!

Don Miller wrote a tongue in cheek essay in response to this “crisis of truth” and what exactly is fiction and nonfiction and how do they relate to truth.

I remember how much I loved J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, for example but was enraged when I finally saw a picture of the author, smoking a pipe, wearing a hat and jacket, no floppy ears, no webbed and hairy feet, a complete con. ‘Lying so and so’, I said to myself, and threw the book across the children’s section of a bookstore. Hobbit my butt.

It isn’t just Tolkien either. Luke Skywalker, who wrote the book Star Wars, doesn’t exist. And Calvin and Hobbes? Bullcrap.

Miller’s eventual point is that truth comes to us in different ways, fiction and nonfiction, poetically as well as historically, mythically as well as scientifically. The latest breaking news on the scientific debunking of all this religious nonsense about Jesus and Christianity comes in the form of the Gospel of Judas. Add it to the Gospel of Thomas and all the other pseudo-authentic texts of how early Christianity “really was”, add it to a compelling fictional potboiler, and you can be a mega-successful author like Dan Brown.

The “real” truth about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is that at first, everyone except the first eyewitnesses had trouble believing it. But the factual truth of the missing body, the supernatural signs, the prophetic signs, and especially the subsequent appearances of the risen Jesus to his followers mark the resurrection as the key moment of history.

Once Peter believed that Jesus was resurrected he knew the world had changed. He sensed that this truth had implications beyond Judea and Palestine. This went beyond “religious” truth. And this was not just truth for the Jews. This was true for all people.

“I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”

Peter is telling his non-Jewish audience that this Jesus is not just a Jewish Messiah, he is God’s way of saving all peoples, all who “fear Him and want to do what is right.”

For a Jew like Peter, this was quite a shocker to the system. All his life he was taught to believe that only the Jews were God’s people, his chosen people. Only the Jews would receive God’s salvation. And then Peter met Jesus and Jesus taught him and the others to take his Gospel to the Jews, yes, but also to the Samaritans, the Egyptians, the Romans, to the unknown peoples which no map recorded.

For many Jews, this shock to the religious system is too much. Jesus is a “Johnny-come-lately,” and Christianity is a upstart religion trying to supercede the faith of Abraham and Moses. It’s hard to believe God has a new favorite people. They say his name only as “you know who.” I can’t blame them. Because Jesus is a very different way to understand truth, religious or otherwise.

God has come to humanity in relationship, that is, in person. God is giving every opportunity to every one, regardless of what your color is, what your continent is, what your country’s flag looks like, how much money you make, how religious or irreligious you and your family have been - Hear the News - it’s Spring Time and God has come a courtin’! The message of Easter is also the message of Christmas. God showed up in person this time, so that we could not be mistaken what He is saying.

What does this have to do with you? Well, perhaps your system of truth needs a little shock too. Maybe you live by an internal code of morality, a system of rules that whether you can verbalize them all or not, you know are there. You do your best to live by your rules. You are true to yourself and that ought to count for something.

Maybe you judge your life by the deeds you do. You keep a list of good deeds and bad and as long as the good outweighs the bad, in the end, you will be okay.

Maybe you have been a very religious person and you’ve learned more than most people you know about the Bible and God and Jesus. For you, knowledge is salvation.

Or maybe you have not been very religious at all. You remember a time, as a kid, when your family did go to church, and since then there hasn’t been a compelling reason. It’s hard to get started. But you know you have good intentions and that ought to count for something.


When we listen to Jesus, the shock is, none of these “systems” are what he had in mind. According to Jesus, Truth is not an internal moral code. Truth is not a sum of good deeds. Truth is not religious knowledge, even Bible knowledge. Truth is not a mysterious, vague desire. Truth, really, is none of these things.

What is truth? Jesus once answered the question this way:

“I am.”

Truth is a person. Truth is Jesus. That’s all we have to depend on. God comes in person to show us and give us life, today, tomorrow, and for eternity.

“I tell you the truth, (I am not lying) in my Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14.2-3)

Jesus is staking the truth on his reputation, on his very person. He wants you to know you are his new favorite. He died and was raised for you. He did it all for you. Right now, Truth Personified is waiting to shake your hand, give you a hug, and lead you on. What say you to Truth today?