Last week I enjoyed a fascinating conversation about Jesus with someone I’d just met.

“He was a great teacher,” she said, “but I can’t accept that he was the Son of God.”

“But isn’t that precisely what he claimed to be?” I asked. “How could he be a great teacher and be wrong about such an important thing as that?”

“Well, sometimes great people are a bit eccentric,” she said.

“Eccentricity is one thing,” I replied, “but claiming to be God? That doesn’t sound like a great teacher to me. No, I believe there are only two options. Either Jesus was God, or he was crazy. And if it weren’t for his resurrection, I’d probably say he was crazy.”

“But that’s just it,” she said. “Don’t you think the resurrection is rather incredulous?”

“I’ll admit it’s rather farfetched,” I said, “but it seems to me more incredulous to doubt it than to believe it.”

“You’re kidding!” she exclaimed. “Why is that?”

I was reluctant to get into all of this, but she was intensely interested. I am amazed at how fascinated people are with Jesus. Religion bores them; Jesus intrigues them. (Now that I think of it, the same is true for me.)

Anyway, continuing, I said, “Well, first of all, he was seen. How do I account for that?”

“That’s easy,” she offered. “They missed him so much that they thought they saw him.”

“That would make sense,” I replied, “but it hardly squares with the evidence. He was seen numerous times by different people in a variety of settings. Most of the time, he was the last person they expected to see at the time. It’s hard to imagine these all to be hallucinations, don’t you think?”

“Not as difficult as believing he rose from the dead,” she countered.

“How about this, then? What about the fact that the body was missing? What happened to it?”

“No problem there, either,” she said. “Someone took it.”

“But who did it?” I said. “Was it one of his friends, or one of his enemies?”

“I suppose it would be his friends,” she claimed.

“Well, it certainly wasn’t his enemies,” I suggested. “If it were, they would undoubtedly have produced his body as soon as the rumors began. But do you really think his friends took it? They subdued the guard, moved the stone, and knowingly perpetuated a lie?

“That hardly seems likely to me,” I continued. “If there’s one thing certain about Jesus’ followers: They were sincere. They may have been deluded, but they were not liars. Besides, do you know how hard it would be to keep a secret like that?”

“I never quite thought of it like that,” she said. “But it seems to me more likely that someone took the body, than that he was raised from the dead. Do you realize how crazy that sounds?”

“I’ll give you that,” I said, “but just because something is unlikely, that doesn’t mean it’s not true. The consistent witness of Christianity is that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. In fact, according to the New Testament, if that claim is false, then all of Christianity is a lie.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?” she said.

“With all my heart,” I said. “But let me say one more thing. From my vantage point, Jesus is not merely a subject we can study, but a person we can know. I believe Jesus rose from the dead because I believe I have experienced his living presence and power in my life.

“For me, talking about Jesus is a bit like talking about the Grand Canyon. Until you’ve seen it, words cannot do it justice. But once you have experienced it, words are not even necessary.”

“Wow. That’s a lot to think about,” she said. “Can we talk about this again some time?”

“Next time, you buy the coffee,” I said.