What if Germany won World War 2? What if President Kennedy wasn’t assassinated? What if 9/11 didn’t happen? What if you got your dream job like you always wanted? What if all of your plans worked out? Life and history are plastered with “What if?” There are so many possible outcomes for how life can go, and it almost always leaves us wondering what if this or that happened instead.
My dad gave me a book when I was home for Christmas that deals with the hypothetical question of what if Nazi Germany succeeded in World War 2, and it follows a team that goes back in time to the 1930s to prevent that from happening. Something they have to battle against is the idea that there are multiple different timelines. Fans of the Marvel movies might think of this as the multiverse, where there are numerous timelines based off of different outcomes of the same event, such as World War 2. I cannot confirm that such a thing exists, but it is fun to think about sometimes, and other times it’s hard to think about.
I grew up mostly without any grandparents. My dad’s parents died before I was born. My mom’s parents died before I was in high school, my grandma when I was 12 and my grandpa when I was 14. I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to grow up and still have grandparents. But the trouble with asking “what if?” is that we never have a solid answer. It’s all speculation. It can’t be solved with any more than fictional movies or books that are all theories by the writer or director.
But as we near Easter, it is appropriate, and even helpful, to ask this question and reflect on our own answers. What if Jesus didn’t die or wasn’t resurrected? Where would that leave humanity? Where would you be? What would your life look like? Would you follow a different god? Would you be religious at all in this postmodern world? There are as many answers to this question as there are people in the world. But it all comes down to how important is God in your life?
To the apostles in the New Testament after Jesus’ ascension, this was EVERYTHING to them. It was the very reason they had hope. To them, life without Jesus wasn’t life at all. To them, to even think about salvation and heaven and God was to include Jesus’ death and resurrection, because without it, nothing else mattered. Do you have the same attitude or belief about Easter?
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, “12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
When we celebrate Easter, we aren’t just celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are celebrating hope. We are celebrating love incarnate. We are celebrating a reality where asking “What if” is pointless because there is nothing better than living in a world where God sent his son to die for every single one of our sins. In other words, we couldn’t have it better off. There is no better world to be a part of or timeline to be connected to because we gained all we could ever dream of when Jesus walked out of that tomb on Sunday morning.
Now, I get where you would start thinking that you have problems, be it relational, financial, moral, or otherwise. But let me offer something for your consideration. When we think about a reality without Jesus’ death and resurrection, our focus generally isn't on those kinds of issues. Maybe the moral ones. But Jesus didn’t come to make our life easy. He didn’t come to offer us life on a silver platter. He came to give us life, and life abundantly. That kind of life cannot be fully realized on Earth. What Jesus came to do is to offer eternity. He came to give an opportunity to escape the hardship and pain that we experience here on earth and even more so in Hell, were we unfortunate enough to end up there, which I don’t wish on anyone.
When we think of life without Jesus, what we lose isn’t anything physical. Instead, we lose all those intangibles that make Christianity worth it. We lose the peace that surpasses understanding. We lose the kind of love that lays down its life for its friends. We lose the faith that shows others how amazing God is. And we lose the hope that there is something far greater out there for us, that we just can’t wait to get to. So, while we may ask “What if” for a great many things, we never have to ask it about Jesus’ death and resurrection because it is far greater than anything we could ever hope for.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." -Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV
