The world population stands at approximately 6.5 billion people at the moment

Confessing Christians 2.2 Billion                             1/3 of the world

Heard about Christ but not reacted 2.2 Billion        1/3 of the world

Not heard the Gospel at all. 2.2 Billion                    1/3 of the world

 

That implies that 2/3 of the current world population, almost 4 ½ billion people, has heard about the Cross, the meaning of Christmas. The 1/3 that has never been exposed to knowledge of the Gospel is mostly living in remote and/or isolated areas of the world

 

The Cross. Visible everywhere;

·        people love to wear it as an ornament (whether it has any meaning or just as an ornament, it is a symbol  of ‘hope in suffering’ and anyone can identify with it even subconsciously - the reason for its worldwide popularity. The symbol itself is hardly an attractive symbol and symbolizes an extremely cruel death penalty)

·        It is so much part of every Christian Church and appears on the towers, on the doors and the like

·        It printed on books, obviously on  the Bible but also many others

·        Television, and contrastingly often in films with an evil undertone to express spiritual powers.

·        Tattooed on peoples bodies and many more

The point is we all know this symbol very well.

 

Christmas

One would certainly be surprised if someone in the Western World, Africa, Latin America, and Australasia claims that they have never heard about Christmas. The vast majority knows that it symbolizes the birth of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago, whether they believe in Him or not.

 

Every time we write the date it refers the date of His birth.

 

How is it possible that a ‘man’ who lived for 33 years 2000 years ago and was in the public eye for a mere 3 years and then sentenced to death with 10 of His 12 closest followers also killed, and 2/3 of the world knows about Him, know when He was born, who He claimed to be and why He had to die?

 

There have been much ‘greater and more famous’ people through the ages; Alexander the Great who conquered most of the known world in a very short period at a young age, Genghis Khan, Mohammed, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vince, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and so many more. How many know when these people lived, were born and died.

 

Why then Jesus? Why are these symbols and dates, the cross and Christmas, known to 2/3 of the world 2000 years after His death?

 

The answer is simple but so hard to see if not experienced in your heart: Christ has dramatically changes and impacted lives when He was on earth. So much so, that 10 of the 12 people closest to Him, His disciples, gave up their own lives (martyred) for what they saw and believed. And even so Paul, who never saw Jesus in life, but had an encounter with Him after the crucifixion, and radically changed from persecuting the early church to someone who made it his life’s purpose to spread the Message, despite being tortured, in jail and flogged more than once. He eventually was also killed for what he experienced and believed. The same  with hundreds of thousands, millions of Christians, through the ages.

 

Why can the world not forget this ‘man’? Is it perhaps that He is alive and is still daily touching people’s lives and radically changing them as He did 2000 years ago? Recent statistics show that there are a 114 people converting to Christ every minute in the world, mainly in Africa and North America. So much so that these changed people make it their business, their life’s purpose,  to tell others about their experience, the love and peace that came to them in this broken world.

 

Apart from what people experience in their lives when they encounter the living Christ and come to a deep trust in God, the historical facts are also overwhelming:

 

Lord Darling, a former Chief Justice of England, said: ‘The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or not was, what He proclaimed Himself to be, must surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favor as a living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true. Quoted in ‘Evidence that Demands a Verdict’, Josh McDowell, Campus Crusade for Christ, Inc., San Bernardino, California, 1972, p201

 

And those who ignore the evidence before them and the daily reminders through the symbols of the cross and Christmas will have no excuse when they stand before God. These symbols will be evidence against them if they would try to say “I did not know’

 

Matthew 11:28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”