If I were to conduct an opinion poll over our website on this question, “Who was John F. Kennedy?”, what would be your answer? The 35th President of the U.S.? The President Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated on that fateful day in November 1963? The President who stood his ground against former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, effectively averting the “Cuban Missile Crisis”. Or the President who catapulted the NASA space program to land a man on the moon within a decade, which it did on July 20th, 1969.
Now let me ask further, “How did you arrive at your answer?” Did you know JFK personally and got to see and hear all that he had accomplished and experienced up close and personal? Or more likely, had you watched his swearing-in ceremony on TV back on January 20th, 1961? Or had you remembered exactly where you were the moment the news of his murder hit the air waves? Or had you remembered those school desk drills whenever the alarm bell rang?
Whoosh, under your desk; which never made a lot of sense to me after having seen what nuclear blasts did. Vaporization – under a desk, really? Or had you been glued to your TV set at 10:56 EDT to see “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
But how about those of you who weren’t even a twinkle in your father’s eye back in the 1960’s? How did you come up with your answer? History classes? TV documentaries? Parents’ stories? How?
Reality says all of us are at the mercy of others’ testimonies. We all end up believing in someone we’ve never personally seen, much less knew. Yet all of us are 100% sure JFK was exactly who others told us he was: our 35th President who had been assassinated by LHO after having averted a nuclear disaster and inspiring us to win the first Stars War.
Two millennia ago, Jesus once conducted His own opinion poll with His Dream Team of 12 disciples. He asked them who they believed He was; a fairly important question if He was soon to turn over His business to these trainees. If you’re upper management and you can’t identify your Founder and CEO, then your corporation is in trouble; in this case, Christianity!
Please come this Sunday to hear what the 1st century opinion polls surrounding Jesus indicated.