Some time ago I studied chaos theory for some writing I was doing. You might say, “Rich, you’ve been a pastor for almost 40 years, didn’t you already know enough about chaos?”
But that’s not the chaos I’m talking about. You might know chaos theory is a big deal today and used in many disciplines. It originated (of all places) in predicting the weather, where a very tiny difference in initial conditions can make a huge difference in eventual weather outcomes. From this came the famous metaphor of the “butterfly effect.” The tiniest of atmospheric changes—like a butterfly fanning its wing—can change the course of a hurricane.
Chaos theory is all about non-linear systems. Linear systems are like a row of dominoes—if you hit the first one, the last one inevitably falls. Non-linear systems are not so predictable. Scientists were slow to pick up on how tiny initial conditions could have huge consequences because they were trained in predictable linear systems.
The author of Chaos: The Making of a New Science writes:
“When people stumbled across such things—and people did—all their training argued for dismissing them as aberrations. Only a few were able to remember that the solvable, orderly, linear systems were the aberrations. Only a few, that is, understood how nonlinear nature is in its soul.”
Could that be true? Could God have created nature—reality itself—to be “non-linear in its soul?” Once the dominoes start falling, can anything stop them?
The good news of the gospel is that every human being is entitled to his or her personal “butterfly effect.” Our lives can become non-linear. Our past mistakes do not determine our futures. Isn’t that great news?
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the ultimate butterfly effect!
If the resurrection really happened 2000 years ago in a tomb outside Jerusalem, like the beating of the butterfly wings, it has a PROFOUND impact on your life today.
Some assume the bodily resurrection of Jesus is a take it or leave it idea, that what’s important is its symbolic or spiritual value. But Paul, and all of Scripture, argue that is not the case. The very existence of Christianity depends on the resurrection.
- If Christ has not been raised, the church wouldn’t exist. In the unlikely event Jesus’ name were even remembered 20 centuries later, it would be as a leader with delusions of grandeur of a minor 1st century Jewish cult.
- If Christ has not been raised, much of the great art and architecture of the western world would disappear. There would be no Sistine Chapel ceiling, no Westminster Abbey, no Bach or Beethoven or other great masters who composed much of their music for Christian worship.
- If Christ has not been raised, our technology, our quality of life, might today be medieval. Historians of all stripes agree that modern science arose in western Europe in the 1500’s and no where else in the world because of the Christian worldview of an orderly universe.
But what does his resurrection mean for you personally?
If Christ has not been raised…Your faith is futile—you are still in your sins. (I Corinthians 15:16)
Actually, a few verses earlier in the original Greek the apostle Paul wrote: “empty is your believing.” This is how I imagine Yoda in the Star Wars movies would say it: “empty is your believing.”
If Christ has not been raised, everything Christians believe is empty, hollow at the core—like an ornate jewelry box that you open only to find it empty inside. Some downplay the resurrection of Jesus today because its supernaturalism doesn’t play well with modern people. But lose the resurrection and “empty is your believing”—you’ve lost any hope of forgiveness or a new life.
If Christ has not been raised…those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. (I Corinthians 15:17)
Many assume a long-term relationship with God is all about doing what God tells us to do. But that popular image is dead wrong.
The fact is…NONE of us do what God tells us to do. Adam and Eve, our human parents, weren’t satisfied with being part of God’s creation and wanted to be like God themselves.
Ever since, when we’re honest with ourselves, we all want to be the god of our own universe. When Jesus says, as he does on many occasions, “I came to seek and save the lost” he’s talking about every one of us.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (I Corinthians 15:19)
Eugene Peterson in The Message paraphrases: “If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot.”
I googled “inspiration” and found 20,600,000 sites. Inspiration is not in short supply today!
If Christ has not been raised, these 20,600,000 options for inspiration are like the beautiful classical music Jewish musicians played as their fellow Jews got off the trains at Aushwitz and Treblinka. Yes, the music was inspiring, but if you’re on your way to die, what difference does it make?
o Life need not be finding a little inspiration as we head toward an ultimate and unavoidable death.
o Our pasts need not determine our futures in a linear, falling dominoes kind of way. This is true whether those pasts contain things we desperately wish we could do over or just a comfortable existence where each of us believe “I’m the god of my own universe.”
An event shrouded in history, that some declare only a myth, is like the fragile beating of a butterfly’s wings. So seemingly insignificant. Yet it changes the course of all human history.
It is a power that changed the world. It is a power that has changed my life. It can change your life too.
The power of Jesus’ resurrection is still felt today by anyone who simply and humbly asks for it.
Question: What objection might you raise? What experience has solidified this truth for you? Please share your thoughts in a comment.
But Christ was raised, and lives at the right hand of God. I do not think much about what ifs when dealing with God and Christ.
My brother, Joe Gilman (1938-2016) graduated from Cal Poly as a mechanical engineer, and worked for the GE nuclear reactor research division for maybe 25 years and finished his career at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto. In the Sixties, GE sent him to do graduate work at Cal, and hired a guy from the Middle East to work with him. This guy had a mathematical theory based on the concept that sounds like chaos theory. If you could take a system such as the weather, and divide it into very small pieces, then you might be able to predict what would happen to the whole system if you input a change in condition at some defined point within the system. They were always looking for time on supercomputers to run their complex programs. My brother was a stress analysis guy, which was important to the piping systems in nuclear reactors. The question was how do you establish standards for the construction of a system that is exposed to heat, pressure and vibration over time, and when do you need to replace old systems that have aged to the point of becoming unsafe. The government and GE wanted to be able to develop standards based on rational applied theory, since the old standards that applied to steam systems were mostly based on applying variables to a system until it blew up. My point is that what Joe was doing in the Sixties sounds like chaos theory.
Joe was a devout Christian, and in his retirement preached a good number of sermons in a small community church in Western Mass., not far from Amherst and Mt. Holyoke, where his son-in law was a professor. His sermons and his writing on various Christian based subjects, and some other miscellaneous writings are on a blog that I will attempt to find and forward its address to you.