Have You Tasted My Jesus?

Soon we will be celebrating the most glorious time of the year, in my opinion, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. With it comes the so-called 'biblical scholars', who every year question the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and their subtle or outright attempts to discredit the scriptural accounts and eye witnesses to the Resurrection of The Lord Jesus Christ.

Have you tasted my Jesus is a short story that I recently read that will stir the ire in these 'biblical scholars'. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Have You Tasted My Jesus?

At the University of Chicago Divinity School each year they have what is called Baptist Day. It is a day when all the Baptists in the area are invited to the school because they want Baptist dollars to keep coming in. On this day each one is to bring a sack lunch to be eaten outdoors in a grassy picnic area. Every Baptist Day the school would invite one of the greatest minds to lecture in the theological education center.

One year they invited Dr. Paul Tillich. Dr. Tillich spoke for two and one-half hours proving that the resurrection of Jesus was false. He quoted scholar after scholar and book after book. He concluded that since there was no such things as the historical resurrection the religious tradition of the church was groundless, emotional mumbo-jumbo, because it was based on a relationship with a risen Jesus, who, in fact, never rose from the dead in any literal sense. He then asked if there were any questions.

After about thirty seconds, an old, dark skinned preacher with a head of short-cropped, woolly white hair stood up in the back of the auditorium. "Docta Tillich, I got one question," he said as all eyes turned toward him. He reached into his sack lunch and pulled out an apple and began eating it. "Docta Tillich..." Crunch, Munch..."My question is a simple question," Crunch, Cunch..."Now I ain't never read them books you read..." Crunch, Munch..."and I can't recite the Scriptures in the original Greek..." Crunch, Munch... "I don't know nothin' about Niebuhr and Heidegger..." Crunch, Munch... He finished the apple. "All I wanna know is: This apple I just ate-- was it bitter or sweet?"

Dr. Tillich paused for a moment and answered in exemplary scholarly fashion: "I cannot possibly answer that question, for I haven't tasted your apple."

The white-haired preacher dropped the core of his apple into his crumpled paper bag, looking up at Dr. Tillich and said calmly, "Neither have you tasted my Jesus."

The one thousand plus in attendance could not contain themselves. The auditorium erupted withn applause and cheers. Dr. Tillich thanked his audience and promptly left the platform.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.  I Corinthians 1:27