Secondary: Current Assemblies
EASTER: TASTE MY JESUS
By
Stuart Kerner
 Suitable for Whole School
Aim
To consider the significance of Christ’s resurrection as a literal historical event.
Preparation and materials
Assembly
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Ask your audience to raise their hands if they have seen the 1997 film Titanic starring Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslett. Comment that the film is one of the most successful of all time, winning eleven Oscars and pushing back the boundaries for special effects.
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Comment that the film was written and directed by James Cameron. This Canadian director has recently been in the news because of his amazing claim to have discovered the coffin containing the remains of Jesus, as well as two others belonging to Mary Magdalene and their son called Judah.
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He says he has DNA evidence, although it’s not clear from where. He’s even made a 90-minute documentary to put forward his astonishing ‘finds’.
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Cameron has used his established and substantial film-making skills to attack Christianity and the faith of millions of people worldwide. If Jesus was not raised from the dead and stayed in the tomb – his remains merely consigned to a stone coffin – then the central belief of Christianity is removed.
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Of course, many people have poured scorn on Cameron’s claims. He is, after all, only the latest in a long line of sceptics determined to prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead, and that he was not the Son of God and does not live today.
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As we approach Easter, it is highly likely that newspapers and TV documentaries will similarly question the events of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. This happens every year.
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The truth behind the gospel stories will be dissected and doubt cast on the amazing accounts of self-sacrifice, miraculous events, and of faith and belief.
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The testimony of the disciples who witnessed the resurrected Christ – those who saw him, touched him and ate with him – will be cast aside as mere hearsay and propaganda.
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Those who cast doubt will casually dismiss those men and women who preached the gospel to a hostile culture; people who went to agonizing, painful deaths rather than reject the hope they had in the physically resurrected Jesus.
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Andrew, Bartholomew, Philip and Simon were beaten and crucified; Matthew and Thomas were run through with spears; James was beheaded; James the Lesser and Thaddeus were stoned to death; and Peter was crucified upside down.
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Think about it: a person may willingly die for the sake of a lie they mistakenly believe is the truth – but nobody will knowingly and willingly endure terrible deaths for a lie they know is a lie.
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Surely, if the resurrection of Jesus was just a story the disciples made up, wouldn’t one of them have confessed to the lie to avoid such a death? But none of them did. They were willing to endure dreadful torture and death for the truth.
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What those who, like James Cameron, seek to overturn the Christian faith do not realize is that, for Christians, the story of the resurrection is part of a living relationship with Jesus – it is not about DNA and dusty bones; it is about changing your life and the way you live it.
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The following story illustrates the futility of those who would reduce the Easter story to a fable:
Each year, the Religious Studies Department of an American university would invite one of the greatest living minds to give a lecture.
One year, an important and well-respected professor spoke for two and a half hours, during which he attempted to prove that the resurrection of Jesus was false.
He quoted author after author and book after book. He came to the conclusion that the religious tradition of Christianity was unfounded, emotional nonsense because it was a faith rooted in the idea of relationship with a risen Jesus – a Jesus who actually never rose from the dead in any factual or historical sense. He then asked if there were any questions.
After about 30 seconds, an old preacher stood up in the back of the lecture hall.
‘Professor, I got one question,’ he said as all eyes turned toward him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an apple and began eating it.
‘Professor . . . crunch, crunch . . . my question is a simple question, . . . crunch, crunch . . . Now, I ain’t never read them books you read . . . crunch, crunch . . . and I can’t recite the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew . . . crunch, crunch . . . I don’t know nothin’ about no great philosophers . . . crunch, crunch . . .’
At this point he finished the apple. ‘All I wanna know is: This apple I just ate . . . was it bitter or sweet?’
The distinguished professor paused for a moment and answered in a clear and educated fashion: ‘I cannot possibly answer that question, since I have not tasted your apple.’
The old white-haired preacher dropped the core of his apple back into his pocket, looked up at the Professor and said calmly: ‘Neither have you tasted my Jesus.’
All those listening could not contain themselves. The lecture hall exploded with applause and cheers. The professor thanked his audience and promptly left the platform.
The uncomplicated faith of a simple country preacher proved more than a match for the supposed cold, hard evidence of the scholarly professor.
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In his final farewells to his disciples, Jesus tells them to believe in what he is saying, ‘or at least believe in the miracles themselves’ (John 14.11). Belief in the miracle of the resurrection is central to the lives of Christians.
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James Cameron may be an excellent storyteller but when we leave the world of the cinema, we return to the real world of the risen Jesus!
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On the basis of all the evidence for Christ’s resurrection and considering the fact that Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and an eternal relationship with God, who would be so foolhardy as to reject him? Christ is alive! He is living today and, during this Easter season, we should rejoice and be glad.
Time for reflection
Reflection:
You might like to read the following poem for the audience to reflect on.
One man didn’t
Three men were tried for crimes against humanity.
Two men committed crimes.
One man didn’t.
Three men were given government trials.
Two men had fair trials.
One man didn’t.
Three men were whipped and beaten.
Two men had it coming.
One man didn’t.
Three men were given crosses to carry.
Two men earned their crosses.
One man didn’t.
Three men were mocked and spat at along the way.
Two men cursed and spat back.
One man didn't.
Three men were nailed to crosses.
Two men deserved it.
One man didn’t.
Three men agonized over their abandonment.
Two men had reason to be abandoned.
One man didn’t.
Three men talked while hanging on their crosses.
Two men argued.
One man didn’t.
Three men knew death was coming.
Two men resisted.
One man didn’t.
One.
Two.
Three men died on three crosses.
Three days later.
Two men remained in their graves.
One man didn’t.
Author unknown
You might also like to use John Updike’s poem ‘Seven stanzas at Easter’ from Telephone Poles and Other Poems, which can be found here: http://www.edow.org/spirituality/updike.html
In the book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis famously criticized the idea that Jesus was merely a great moral teacher whose claims to divinity were false:
I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. Prayer:
Lord Jesus,
Thank you for dying on the cross for our sins.
May we open the doors of our lives and trust you as our Saviour.
Thank you for forgiving our sins and bringing us to eternal life.
Make us the kind of people you want us to be.
Amen.
Song
‘Lord of all hopefulness’ (Come and Praise, 52)
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