How can we truly know Jesus?

In the early ’70s, a rock opera’s title song dared to pose the question, “Jesus Christ, Superstar / Do you think you’re what they say you are?”

In fact, questions about Jesus have engaged humanity for millennia. Last week another set of challenging questions was raised in the Discovery Channels’ documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” produced by famed filmmaker James Cameron.

The Cameron documentary contends that ossuaries (or bone boxes), discovered in a South Jerusalem tomb in 1980, contain the bones of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and “Judah, son of Jesus.” If true, these findings would seriously contradict New Testament Scripture.

For example, it is a widely held Christian belief that Jesus ascended into heaven—an event Scripture states was witnessed by his immediate disciples. In addition, some of the conclusions of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” are not compatible with Scriptural beliefs about Jesus resurrection. Also, as in the Dan Brown novel that was made into a film, The Da Vinci Code, this documentary suggests that Jesus probably married and had at least one child.

The publicity surrounding such presentations may well lead some people to ask: How can we know the truth about Jesus and his life? What light do these archaeological digs in the Middle East shed on who he truly was?

Even during Jesus’ lifetime, people questioned him about his mission. Once, when Jesus was walking in the temple in Jerusalem, he was asked by many temple-goers if he was actually the Christ, or Messiah. According to John’s Gospel, Jesus replied that he had already answered that question but that they hadn’t believed him.

“The works that I do in my Father’s name,” said Jesus, “they bear witness of me.” So Jesus himself expected followers to look for evidence through his works, not just to take his word alone. And the proof of who he was—the Christ, or Messiah, the Saviour of mankind—was, he said, to be found in the reforming power of the truth he spoke.

Indeed, would Jesus’ message of “good news,” or the gospel about God as a loving and all-powerful Father, have spread so rapidly, and attracted multitudes, if he hadn’t proved the power of those words, in healing people, in raising the dead, and in reforming sinners?

And consider his followers, who he left behind after his ascension. Under the constant threat of arrest and death themselves, would they so willingly have carried this good news forward—as far as Rome itself—if there wasn’t something very powerful behind it? And would they have found new followers, if the disciples couldn’t prove, like Jesus, the truth behind the words?

It is hard to deny that it was Jesus’ saving truth, or the eternal Christ, that astounded and drew in followers. It was a truth that could be taught and shared beyond Jesus’ short mission on earth. Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Jesus was born of Mary. Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual,—yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death.”

In Science and Health she articulated the Science behind what Jesus lived and taught, and made it available as a practical, healing system for all people. But she was always very definite that Jesus was the Way-shower, whose life and works showed humanity how to live spiritually, always under God’s care.

I have found that regularly reading the Bible and Science and Health has helped me apply some of Jesus’ teachings to challenges in my own life. For example, several years ago, while vacationing out of state, I woke early one morning with a very painful toothache. At first I prayed about it on my own, but when I didn’t see improvement, I did what I had been doing for many years. I contacted a Christian Science practitioner and asked her to give me treatment. In less than half an hour after speaking with her, the pain completely melted away. And it never returned.

Since Christian Science treatment is based on the healing work that Jesus did, I felt right then the healing power of Jesus’ teachings. While I don’t know the details of the treatment the practitioner gave me, I’m sure it would have been based on my perfection as the child of God. As Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Because God is perfect Love, I couldn’t experience anything that God didn’t cause or create. Divine Love, God, never causes suffering but rather, delivers us from it. Such prayer follows Jesus’ model and attributes all power to God, and God alone. And the practitioner would have expected concrete evidence of this prayer to be seen and felt—which it was.

To me, this healing and the many others that I’ve had through my study of Christian Science, proves that Jesus truly did represent the healing Christ and gave us actual evidence of God’s healing power.

It may be inevitable that debates will persist as to whose bones are in which ossuaries and whether Jesus was the Messiah. And it’s likely that some people will continue to ask if he even lived at all. But, for me, the proof of Jesus’ life is in the healing legacy he left and that each of us can practice for ourselves. This healing power will continue to bear witness of him and his mighty works.

Finding Jesus:

Science and Health
332:9-15 Jesus

King James Bible
John 10:23-25
Matt 5:48