If it was revealed Christ was a fraud, how would your life change?

Since it began, the majority of American citizens have identified as “Christian”.  A Christian is one who professes a belief in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, which is no small thing.  Jesus taught many controversial things and lived a profoundly unconventional life; it was all enough to not only get him killed, but many who followed him.  The early disciples and apostles embraced lives far different than the ones they knew before Christ, often at a great cost; were Jesus to be revealed a fraud, they would be ruined.

You get this sense from them in the days leading up to and following Jesus’ crucifixion.  As Jesus begins to say and do troubling things, including going to the people scheming his murder, they begin to push back and even rebuke him; “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” (Matthew 16:22)  They were willing to give up everything, be imprisoned, and even die… but not if Jesus wasn’t the Messiah they thought he was.

It turns out he was much more, but that wasn’t clear when Jesus was in the tomb.  They lamented, they ran, they hid, and they had no clue what to do next; then Jesus walked through a wall alive and they knew their controversial, unconventional lives of following him were not for nothing.  They went on to be led by the Spirit to lead lives for more controversial and unconventional because of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, facing accusations, persecutions, and martyrdom along the way.

As Paul put it:

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
1 Corinthians 15:19

He was so “all in” for Jesus that if Jesus was a fraud, he would have thrown everything away for nothing.  In a moment, his entire identity, livelihood, and purpose would be rubbish, and he’d have dragged others with him through heretical teachings: “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.”

Those who really follow Christ would be ruined if he were not the Christ.

How would your life change?  In a nation where Christianity has always been widely accepted, it can be easy to slip into a “cultural Christianity” rather than embody the Christ-following modeled by the apostles.  The loss of Christ might be disruptive, but would it be ruinous for you?  Would you, of all people, be most to be pitied?

For some, the loss of Christ might mean wasted time on Sundays, but not much else.  For others, it could be wasted years in Christian-vocations resulting in a job-search.  For many, it could result in an identity-crisis that takes years to navigate.  The extent to which the fraudulency of Christ would impact you rests not just on how much Christianity shapes your life, but Christ shapes your soul.

The disciples had an opportunity to pull back and walk away (John 6:66), and when they jumped all in there was no turning back.  They committed their lives to Christ to the point that there was no life left outside of Christ; if Christ was nothing, so were they.  Christ was not a part of their life, or a label they wore: he was their life.  “For to me to live is Christ.” (Philippians 1:21)

Can we say the same?  Is Christ truly everything, or a filter through which we engage everything else?  Is Christ our life, or are we simply living with Christ in mind?  If Christ were gone, would we cease as well, or would he simply be a pothole in our otherwise ongoing journey?

To have one’s life so bound to Christ that to lose him would be ruinous and piteous is no small thing, and those that arrive there do not do so through their own capacities.  The patience of Jesus, the equipping of the Spirit, and the love of God — poured on a willing heart — is what can lead one to be all-in for Jesus with all their heart, all their mind, all their soul, and all their strength… not simply their good intentions.  The Trinity equips us not only to make a controversial, unconventional decision once, but to continue to do so, because we discover that we are a part of a different Kingdom with a vastly different reality, where what seemed foolish is proven wise.  We do not fear a ruinous, pitied life, because the here-and-now is but withered grass compared to the eternal.

If this feels far from you, don’t fret; the distance is not a matter of how much you get it, but how willing you are to stay at the table.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
Philippians 3:7-21