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Nerd – An unstylish, unattractive, or socially
inept person; especially one devoted to academic or intellectual pursuits.
*****
I’m a nerd. This
confession won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that has known me for
more than, say, 30 seconds. In high
school I lettered in football, baseball, and… orchestra. I wasn’t invited to my first party that served alcohol until
college.
My geekhood didn’t end as an adult either. You know when you go on a tour and there’s that
really annoying guy that’s asking a billion questions to the tour guide? That’s me.
I love to learn, and I’m not satisfied just taking someone’s word for
things – I need to ask questions and come to my own conclusions about things. Unfortunately, in the 5th grade
(or any stage of life, really), it isn’t cool to be a nerd. As a teacher however, I want to instill a
sense of wonderment amongst my students so that they too will open their minds
up to learning. After all, I believe
that much of learning stems from the desire to learn. And, I believe that hearing and learning about
things once does not make someone an expert in it. This is a difficult concept for my students
to understand; many times when I’m teaching a lesson, the same dialogue takes
place with my students:
Mr. Lin: Today, we will (insert learning objective
here) and demonstrate mastery by (insert assessment objective).
Students: Do
we have to?? We learned this last year
already!
My students often feel like if they’ve learned it once
before, they don’t have to try to learn it again. But, as any teacher will tell you, hearing
about it once never makes someone an expert in the matter. Not that this is big news to any of us; I’d
guess most people wouldn’t consider themselves experts on anything if they’ve
only heard one perspective or learned about it for a few hours.
I’ve gotten to know the basics of Christianity fairly well,
and over the past 5 years I’ve gotten to know my bible pretty well also. Case in point: I know that Good Friday is the day that Jesus
was crucified and Easter is the day that Jesus was resurrected. So why do I go to church each week,
especially on Easter when I know the basics of what the message will be
about? Well, because I’m a nerd.
I admit it seems pretty fantastical that a person can die,
then be raised from the dead. If there
wasn’t evidence that would lead me to conclude that Jesus was resurrected, I
wouldn’t be a Christian. Unfortunately, since
video surveillance of the tomb Jesus was buried in is unavailable, so I needed
other kinds of evidence before I could take that essential part of Christianity
to heart. Much of this evidence was
found through my study of Roman Centurions, the like of which was guarding
Jesus’ tomb some 2,000 years ago. I
recently stumbled on a blog that sums up a lot of what I discovered some time ago. If you are a big nerd like me, you may find
it a fun read as there are several posts on the make-up of the guards at the
tomb. It also looks at different
theories at what happened to Jesus’ body – again, pretty fun reading for nerds
like me.
Click here if you’re interested in reading more, since the topic of this post isn't Roman Centurions or defending the resurrection of
Christ. Instead, today’s post is focused
on a different part of Sunday’s Easter sermon that I nerded out on – a medical
look at the death of Jesus.
*****
Even the greatest cynics will agree that Jesus was a person
that walked the earth around 2,000 years ago.
They will also likely agree that He was put to death by crucifixion. However, medical professionals will tell you
that crucifixion in itself cannot be the cause of death, much like a gunshot
wound isn't in itself a cause of death. Instead,
a coroner will determine that death from a bullet was caused by exsanguination,
hypoxia caused by pneumothorax, or something of the like. So… if crucifixion was only the means by
which Jesus’ death was facilitated, what was the actual medical cause?
On March 21, 1986, the American Medical Association (AMA) wrote
an article looking into answering this very question. Although there are no Associated Press news reports of
the crucifixion on microfiche and no coroner’s reports available, they base their findings on biblical
accounts which would be meaningless to fabricate and therefore generally
accepted as fact:
What do these accounts point to medically? According to the
AMA, death during crucifixion was primarily from exhaustion asphyxia (suffocation)
or hypovolemic shock (blood and fluid loss resulting in the heart being unable
to pump enough blood into the body).
This is where things get interesting.
I have long dismissed blood and water flowing from Jesus’
side as a mere detail of Jesus’ death. After
hearing about Jesus' death in the sermon, I decided to take a closer look into what this meant
and how it pertains to the crucifixion.
In
this article and the
AMA article referenced earlier, I found that of the two physical effects of crucifixion, hypovolemic shock is
the likely cause of Jesus’ death. This
is because the appearance of blood and water flowing from a wound through the
heart would be consistent with what would happen with heart failure and heart
attacks. In other words… Jesus died physically
from a broken heart while at the same time dying metaphorically from the same
cause – as illustrated when he looked upon the city of Jerusalem and wept for
those He came to give His life for...
As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace - but now it is hidden from your eyes. - Luke 19: 41-42
*****
As Easter 2013 fades into our memory, I understand that there
are many skeptics out there – and perhaps you are one of them. Maybe the story of Jesus is a collection of
legends that grew and was embellished as the years passed. It could be that it’s a twist of fate - the
story of Jesus telling of a loving God whose heart was breaking for mankind so
He came down from Heaven… and the cause of His death being a physically broken heart so that mercy could be given to us.
But… what if it’s not a coincidence?
Be a nerd and dive in.
Maybe you’ll be like me and find you are surprisingly intrigued with
what you discover...
