Little Details

"...immediately blood and water flowed out." John 19:34

It's the little details that make a true story. When there's a crime investigation, the examiner asks a lot of questions to see if the story adds up. Lee Strobel was a practicing atheist when his wife converted to Christianity. He decided to prove to her that her belief was sitting on a house of cards. First the crucifixion didn't happen, and of course, the resurrection was completely fabricated. He was an awarded investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune so he was quite confident of the outcome. The outrageous claims that Jesus was God, that He allowed Himself to be crucified, and that He rose from the dead, were all just plain, barefaced lies!!! So Lee decided to apply all his training from Yale Law School and all his years of experience as an editor for a prestigious newspaper to get to the truth. 

What he didn't know was that compared to other ancient historical events, the evidence and the proof for Jesus' life and death was so overwhelming, it pointed to the unthinkable! More than 5000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are in existence today compared to just handfuls of the writings of the historian Josephus and Tacitus. And in some of those ancient manuscripts are the 4 gospels with its wealth of detail. 

John probably had no idea why he saw blood and water come out of Jesus' side when the soldier pierced it with his spear. But a doctor can tell you that because of so many distressing things happening to Jesus' body before and during the crucifixion, fluid in the membrane around the heart and lungs collected, and this is what came out of Jesus. And that's just one of the many many details in the fascinating record of Jesus' life. 

Lord, we don't have to be an investigative reporter, a phd, a scholar, a doctor, to know who You are and Your story. We just need to long to see Your face. You said, if we seek, we will find, and I know that as long as I keep seeking, and reading more and more of Your Word, I will find the greatest treasure the world has ever known!