FAITH: You can believe Jesus died for you

For the Christian community the two times on the calendar that garner the most attention for us are Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, and Easter - which is more accurately called Passover - when we remember His crucifixion and glorious resurrection. These two events are our Super Bowl, so to speak.

Many start to celebrate the week leading up to Good Friday and the Sunday morning service with various events that culminate when we gather in our local churches to celebrate our Lord's resurrection. This is a time when we focus in on what exactly Jesus accomplished at Calvary for each one of us. He took the sin of the world on Himself and died in our place, was placed in a tomb and rose three days later giving all who would believe life after death in heaven with Him forever.

For some it is hard to believe that such a gift could be free. For others it is hard for them to believe that anyone would give their life up for strangers, that He could love them without knowing them. Many have a hard time believing they can be forgiven for the sins they have committed and feel unworthy of such love. The reality is Jesus did all this for us. The familiar verse John 3:16 tells us: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." His love for us is beyond our understanding and penetrates to the heart of all things.

Is there a way to be sure that the resurrection story is true? Is there a way that we can know that we can trust the scriptures as they have been written and translated correctly over the centuries? The answer is "we can" on both accounts. The finding of the Dead Sea scrolls proved that through centuries of being copied that they have remained unchanged. We can also know that the scriptures are true through the prophets as their words were recorded hundreds of years - and in some cases over a thousand - prior to them happening. Mathematician Peter Stone once calculated the probability of just eight of these prophecies unfolding as written being one to the 240th power. In other words, not at all likely to be a coincidence.

On the day of the crucifixion, 33 prophecies alone were fulfilled.

Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, as most people know. They even know that he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. But many don't know that the silver amount was prophesied 500 years earlier in Zechariah 11:12: "And I said unto them, if ye think good, give Me My price, and if not, forbear. So they weighed for My price thirty pieces of silver."

This was fulfilled in Mathew's Gospel, Matthew 26:15: "And said unto them, what will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver.

His crucifixion was prophesied as was the parting of His garments. Psalm 22 tells us they would cast lots for His garments and that He would be crucified ("pierced My hands and feet"). This was 1,000 years before it happened, and crucifixion had not even been introduced at that time.

Psalm 22:18: "They parted My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture."

Psalm 22:16: "For dogs have compassed Me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet."

Both prophecies were fulfilled in Matthew 27:35, where we read: "And they crucified Him, and parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture did they cast lots."

There are literally hundreds of prophecies like these. You can trust the Bible. You can trust the Passover Easter account and you can trust that Jesus died and rose again because of His love for you.

This month's columnist is Pastor Ted Youker of Grace Church in Cloquet, pictur-

ed above. Contact him via email at gracebaptist [email protected] or by phone at 218-879-5749.