The Location of the Tsarist Gold: Merry Christmas!

I am told the least read post of the year is the one posted on Christmas Day. As a result, I have chosen this post to communicate to my friends, the location of the last Tsar of Russia’s gold.

We buried it in the olive grove at Biola University before moving to Houston. Used it to fund our resistance to Iskra in Saint Petersburg…

Maybe.

Which brings us to the question of “truth,” and our particular cultural moment. Evidently the lack of certainty about most things has led people to believe they can believe anything. My social media feed is alive with conspiracy theories of the left and right less plausible (by a good bit), than my assertion I have hidden Tsarist gold at Biola.

First, there are very few things about which a person should be certain. We get tricked. We misunderstand what we are told. We misunderstand even the most basic things. Scientists commit fraud and philosophers suffer from mental blinders. When we say we “know,” we really mean “probably.”

Second, that fact should not deceive us. Probably is better than probably not and almost surely is worthy of belief. We sometimes will be wrong (see polls in politics 2016), but must go with the evidence. Generally, if a man or woman follows the argument and evidence where it leads and is as open as possible to contrary evidence, things will turn out for the good.

So it is with the good news of Christmas. Christ was born, lived, died, and rose again . . . almost surely. Maybe not. If you are determined to resist the conclusion, you can and even do so rationally, but you should not. History makes no sense if you ignore Jesus and His works. Science would not exist if not for the culture birthed from Jesus’ message. Greek philosophy was transformed by contact with the servants of Jesus.

If you talk to people who disagree with you, you will discover Jesus is hard to avoid. Atheism in the United States spends almost all their social media time attacking Jesus and His movement. They live off the culture, Jesus and His folks created. Hedonists in America depend on Jesus and His followers to stay tolerant, keep paying their taxes, and protecting them. They can remake what Jesus did, sometimes with better special effects, but they cannot produce Christmas.

Over the course of my life, when I have rejected Jesus, I have found that I could justify rejecting this reality intellectually or emotionally, but never both at the same time. He satisfies my desire for truth and beauty, but also goodness. You can wonder at the beauty of the cosmos, but it will never love you. You can study the truth of history or science, but facts are not beautiful by themselves.

Jesus is real. Jesus is alive. He was born on Christmas Day to save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray. O Tidings of Comfort and Joy!

Now you could go to the olive grove and look for Tsarist gold or you could close the browser and worship Christ. I know which one is real. You should as well.