Editor, Gazette-Journal:

During Lent, there is much discussion about Christianity and Jesus. Some people say the Bible is just stories, but put yourself in the place of Jesus’s first followers and decide for yourself.

A major part of Christianity is the belief that Jesus is the son of God who lived on earth, died for our sins and rose from the dead. He and his first followers were Jewish, a people who for many centuries heard commandments and prophecies from God and witnessed his miracles. Some followers had been with Jesus for three years and had seen some prophecies about a promised Messiah fulfilled in his miracles and teachings. But despite all they witnessed, did they really believe He was the promised Messiah? Would they have fled when he was arrested in the garden if they really believed? Would Peter had denied knowing Jesus if he really believed? Did they really believe after Jesus was crucified, while they were hiding, fearful that they would be killed next?

It has been said that “it isn’t what you do just after something bad happens that really matters, but what you do in the following days, weeks, months and years.” When Jesus was killed, it was the worst thing that happened in His followers’ lives. Their leader, with the wisdom and power, had been killed. The Romans and their own people, the Jews, were against them. If captured, they risked being scourged and crucified the way Jesus was. What would you have done if you had been a follower of Jesus?

If Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, His followers would probably have decided that they had followed a false leader. They would probably have changed their identities or moved to another country and started a new life. Unless God had another plan, that would have been the end of the Christian religion as we know it today.

Instead, after they saw Jesus’s greatest miracle, His resurrection, they knew positively that he was the Messiah. And after the Holy Spirit descended on them at Pentecost, they boldly began fulfilling the great commission in Matthew 28:19, 20 NKJV: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them … teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.” They weren’t afraid of death anymore, despite being threatened, beaten, jailed, exiled or killed. They were willing to die rather than give up their Christian faith.

The simple fact that Christianity still exists attests to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. His followers weren’t stupid. They knew what they saw with their own eyes, and they showed with their lives what they believed in and were willing to die for. They wouldn’t have died for a hoax any more than you would have.

So what do you believe in and are willing to die for?

Robert Boudreaux

Gloucester, Va.