Anything Is Possible

PROLOGUE

Do You Believe in Miracles?

So, there I was… (I told you that’s how I start every good story.)

City of Jerusalem. A parking lot. A city bus lot, really. One of the busiest places in all of Jerusalem. It’s loud. People are shouting, honking horns, and air brakes are doing that ear-piercing “phish” thing they do when you least expect it. Diesel fumes, carbon monoxide, cigarette smoke, and hot asphalt burn my nose. Nothing in me wants to rest here and take it in. A few yards to my right, a rock cliff looms. It’s jagged and pocked with holes. Some large enough to drive a car into. This is high ground, and from the time of Melchizedek and later the Jebusites, people once lived in those “caves.” For safety. Above us, on the hillside, what was once pasture or possibly a vineyard, now spreads a Muslim cemetery. Its location has something to do with keeping the Gentiles out.

When I stare at the cliff wall and tilt my head slightly, three features stand out. Two eyes. A mouth beneath. No kidding, it looks like a twenty-foot skull. Older pictures confirm that erosion and human use have chipped away at what was once much more definitive. In the mid-1800s, Horatio Spafford—who penned the poem that later became the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul”—was staying in an upstairs apartment on the Western Wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, when his house guest, General Charles Gordon, stared out his window at this same cliff and said, “That’s Golgotha.” The place of the skull. God preserved it. These men purchased the ground next to it. It contains an ancient garden. With a tomb carved out of rock.

This is where it happened.

Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, willingly shed His blood within a few feet of where I stand. And seriously, if it wouldn’t burn my feet, I’d take off my shoes. This is holy ground. As buses and people swirl around me, the Scriptures echo. Speaking about the blood. The first is God to Moses: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Lev. 17:11). The next is Jesus Himself on the night He was betrayed: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Historians record that when the Romans crucified a man, they hung him at eye level. Allowing passersby to spit in the condemned man’s face served as more of a deterrent. You could see and hear the agony. I spin in a circle wondering where. Where did Jesus hang? Where did His blood splatter the earth?

Next is John’s description of Jesus’ Crucifixion, which he writes as an eyewitness: “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). The combination of the two—blood and water—confirms that Jesus was drowning in His own lung fluid, which also meant He’d tired of pushing up on His nail-pierced feet. Though He managed to do it at least seven times. Over my shoulder and across the Brook Kidron rises the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. It was there, on the last night of his life, that Jesus prayed and His blood vessels burst and He sweated blood. One of the more painful experiences in all of human history. The Son of Man felt the weight of the coming wrath of God and felt as if He would die. From there, they mocked Him, spit on Him, punched Him, plucked out His beard, beat Him with rods, drove three-inch acacia thorns into His skull, and flogged Him with a cat-o’-nine-tails, ripping chunks of flesh off his back and neck. Somewhere close to where I stand, they shoved a spear into His chest, and blood and water flowed.

Payment made in full. “Tetelestai.”

Years later, Paul would bolster the Ephesians by reminding them of this same blood: “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). “Brought near.” I’ve always loved that because left to ourselves we can’t bring us anywhere. Later, Paul told the Romans, “we have now been justified by his blood” (Rom. 5:9). Justified. Just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned. An inconceivable notion. Made possible through what Peter called “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:19).

That happened right here.

Heat rises off the asphalt. Pigeons scurry. Women carry groceries. And yet John, an eyewitness, writes, “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7). While the cleansing of our souls occurred right around here, this place is anything but clean. Which is just like Jesus.

Over and over in the gospels we read the words of Jesus saying, My hour has not yet come. But, in this parking lot, time expired. The hour came. This is where Jesus drained the Father’s cup. Drinking every last drop. Justifying you and me, saving us from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9). On this storied ground, Jesus walked down into the slave market, looked at all of us stacked up behind bars and shackled in chains, and told the slave owner, “I’ll buy them all.” And when the owner laughed and mocked, “With what?” Jesus climbed up on that cross and “poured out his soul to death” (Isa. 53:12). This is the spot where the will of God the Father “crushed” the Son and “put Him to grief” (Isa. 53:10). Where He made His soul “an offering for guilt” (Isa. 53:10). Where He, Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2). Where He “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Where He ransomed mankind. Sinners like you and me.

This is where.

To be honest, when I realized that the most sacred place on planet earth is now a busy bus stop, it bothered me at first. I thought it was sacrilegious. How could people just be walking over the place where the lamb was slain for the forgiveness of sin and not even be paying attention to where they were stepping? How could the place where the most important event in all eternity now be a place where people hurried to get where they were going? At first it seemed so out of place. Then it hit me. This is probably much closer to the reality that Jesus found himself in two thousand years ago than what I had in mind. A place where everyone could see Him on the cross, but few would pay the deserved attention.

Scripture tells us that the blood of Abel cries out from the ground. What’s it saying? Well, in short, that we—all of us—are guilty. Condemned. But the sprinkled blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:24). What’s it speaking? What does the blood of Jesus really say about you and me?

“Tetelestai.”

In Greek, “It is finished.”

He said these words right here, just before He died.

As that reality settles in, I am overcome by the fact that this entire transaction is inconceivable. Why would the King of the universe leave His throne only to come here and die for me? Just being honest—I know me, and it’s a bad trade. King for rebel. Makes no sense. And yet, this is where God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

As the afternoon sun falls, the shadows grow long and a cool breeze blankets Jerusalem, I can understand the dilemma of those who stood staring at Jesus’ lifeless body. With sabbath approaching, they had maybe an hour to get His body in the ground. Matthew records that Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea, and a secret disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for the body (Matt. 27:57). This is always a reminder to me to make room for those who start out as secret disciples. God’s not done with them. Pilate granted permission, and Joseph—along with some help—lifted Jesus’ limp and bloodless body off the cross and carried Him to a tomb he’d had cut for himself. A new tomb. One in which no one had ever lain, thereby fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy: “They made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death” (Isa. 53:9).

Somewhere beneath my feet, their tears mixed with his blood.

I walk across the parking lot, through a quiet gate, and into a garden. Tall trees create a canopy, and colorful flowers line the meticulously manicured stone walkways. Around me, people walk arm in arm and sing in hushed tones. I round a corner and the garden opens up. Steps to my left and right lead to a terrace below me. Two thousand years ago, an ancient stonemason carved a small stone pool into the center of the rock. About the size of a large hot tub. Cut into one corner is a groove in the stone. Vineyard workers would carry grapes in from the vineyard that surrounded us and barefooted women and children would crush the grapes. Making wine. The irony does not escape me. Jesus was arrested in a garden where they crushed the olives and oil flowed, and He was buried in a garden where they crushed the grapes and wine flowed. The Lord placed the very first image bearers in a garden to walk with Him. Satan deceived them in that garden and they suffered the results of their sin. Then the Lord became sin for His image bearers and dealt the death blow to satan, overcoming sin and death in a garden.

Oil and wine.

To my left is a stone wall. Rather plain. Nondescript. In the center is a hole large enough to walk through. Or carry a body through. At the base lies something akin to a track, or runner, like for a sliding glass door. Or large round stone. The wall is smooth from a century and a half of hands like mine rubbing against it. Touching it. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I “read” the stone with my fingertips, listening to what it might tell me. When Jesus paraded into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, His followers were shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38). Indignant, some of the Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples” (Luke 19:39). Jesus stared out across the crowd and shook His head. “If these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40). As my hand brushes the wall, I am struck by the knowledge that this is one of those stones.

At eye level, my fingers come across something not stone. Sharp, even. It’s the remains of a rusted iron spike, about the size of my index finger, driven into the wall, to seal the stone by Roman decree so that it could not be rolled back by human hands.

I scratch my head. Did they really think that could hold Him?

Some say that this isn’t truly the empty tomb; they believe the empty tomb can be found at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. That’s where Emperor Constantine’s mother fell into a cave and decided that must be Jesus’ final resting place. Soon after, religious devotees started building shrines around it and the building continues today. As does the infighting. I like this one better. Can I state with any certainty that this really is the burial site of Jesus? No, but the signs around me make a pretty good case.

I traveled here with two of my best pastor buddies, Ben Williams and Ryan Britt. All three of us are staring at the wall, and we’re not saying much. Oddly, the other visitors have exited and we have the place to ourselves. Which is crazy. One of the most revered sites in all of Christendom, and we’re basically alone. I’m about to walk into the tomb when Pastor Britt walks up alongside me, hands me his earbuds, pushes play, and suddenly Hillsong is singing in my ear: “They laid him down in Joseph’s tomb.”

That happened right here.

I am undone. Quickly.

Then the chorus: “O praise the name of the Lord, our God.” Like those that carried the body, I too am crying. The older I get, the easier that happens.

I walk into the tomb, hit my knees, and find myself taking short, shallow breaths. This is the singular thing that changed everything, about everything, for everyone who would believe.

Because this was a rich man’s tomb, the tomb had two areas. One was a foyer. A sitting room. The other had a preparation table and three carved-out flat areas, almost like bunks, where the family would lay the bodies. But, to this day, only one is finished. The other two remain raw cutouts. Suggesting the tomb was used exactly once.

Behind me, a tall man walks in. He’s maybe six foot six and skinny as a rail. Like 150 pounds. As he unfolds a Nigerian flag, he looks at me and speaks in this deep, beautiful voice, “Hello, brother, my name is Musah.”

We shake hands. “Joby.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a pastor.”

“Me too.”

He laughs an easy laugh, and points at the stone shelf. “We have the same Father. Same Savior. And He is our brother, therefore—” He points at me. “We are brothers.”

If it were not true, it would almost be comical. A redneck from Dillon, South Carolina, and a pastor from Nigeria. Two guys from opposite ends of the planet, drawn by the same love, meet in an empty tomb outside Jerusalem. Brothers. Sinners. Saints. Children of God.

We pray for each other. Our families. Our churches.

Standing in that tomb, it struck me that Musah and I had something in common. We had answered the most important question ever asked, and our answer had us standing in that empty hole in the rock. The question has been phrased throughout history many ways but Pilate said it best: “What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matt. 27:22).

This is not just a question, this is the question.

One of my favorite writers and thinkers, C. S. Lewis, wrestled with this very question in Mere Christianity. And his answer is one of my favorites: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

If Jesus really is the Son of God and He really rose again, and really walked out of the tomb—leaving it empty—then what does that mean for you and me? The choice is simple.

Spit or bow.

When Jesus rose again, he appeared to more than five hundred eyewitnesses over a period of forty days. History records many of those same people died as martyrs—for Him. Including all of His disciples, save Judas.¹ For what they saw. Put yourself in their sandals. What would cause you to be willing to die for another? Would you die for a corpse? A dead man? A lie? Me neither.

This is the anchor for me. This stone hole in the earth is the epicenter of everything I believe. I am by nature, and probably nurture, a skeptic. I really am. So when I meet the person in my church who tells me about their miracle, for whatever reason, there’s this thing in me that’s like, “Man, I don’t know…” But, then I remember standing here. In this empty tomb. The greatest and most undeniable miracle of all time. Jesus was crucified. Dead. Buried. And on the third day He was raised from that tomb. The first disciples testify to it. The early Church testifies to it. The history books testify to it. I testify to it.

Which is why I wrote this book. A book about the miracles of Jesus. It’s the epicenter of everything I believe.

If the Father, through the Spirit, raised the Son to life and Jesus walked out of this grave shining like the sun, then is there anything He can’t do? And before you answer, remember, He just defeated death, hell, and the grave. The answer is no. There is absolutely nothing He can’t do. That’s what helps my skepticism. It’s not the little miracles that point me to the empty tomb and help me believe He walked out. It’s the empty tomb that points me to the lesser miracles and supports my belief that He’s alive. Right now. And so when the next desperate need arises, and someone in my church stops me and asks me to pray for the healing the doctors have told them is impossible, the reason I go to Him praying for a miracle is simple.

Because this tomb is empty.

It couldn’t hold Him.

Miracles are that intersection where the unexplainable meets the undeniable. Where the limited and finite ability of man ends and the unlimited and infinite will of God begins. Where “what is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

Live long enough and you either have been, are, or will be in need of a miracle. Where we face something that we can’t fix and run out of options. As a pastor, I see this weekly. I also see God continually do the undeniable. The unimaginable. The did-you-see-that stuff. I often feel like Peter and John must have when they were dragged before the religious rulers and commanded never to teach again in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:18). I love their response. The Joby translation sounds like this: You do you, Scooter, but I’m going to keep speaking about what I’ve seen and heard. Meaning, I will not deny what I’ve witnessed.

Right this second, you may be in the fight of your life. Where what you see is impossible. Where the scans are bad. Where your prodigal is not ever coming home. Where your marriage is beyond reconciliation. Where that mountain in your business is insurmountable. If that’s you, don’t fear and don’t give up.

This tomb is empty.

And because it is, anything is possible. Anything.

This is not the new age gospel of “think good thoughts” or “I’m sending positive vibes your way.” It’s the age-old gospel of believe Jesus. And once again, “belief in,” or pisteuo¯, stands at the center. That’s why I spent so much time covering it in If the Tomb Is Empty. Belief is the bedrock because doubt is never more powerful and faith never more weak than when your circumstances are terrible and you can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.

And your enemy knows this.

Let me ask you this—what if the seemingly impossible thing you’ve been praying for is just on the other side of obedience? Would you act? Would you dig your heels in and choose to believe? Take Him at His word? Despite your circumstances? I realize this has been abused and I am not a prosperity-name-it-and-claim-it preacher, but I am a Bible believer. The tension I often face as a preacher is convincing folks in my church that the abuse of the false prosperity gospel does not change the truth of the gospel as recorded in Scripture. God forbid we doubt the words of Jesus because of the abuse of the few.

Once again, “belief in”—or pisteuo¯ in Greek—is the first step in obedience.

Jesus told the crippled man to rise and walk, and He told the man with the withered hand to stretch out his hand, and only when they did were they healed. What if there’s a lesson in here for us? Before I get too far down this road, let me sum up this book in a nutshell—Jesus is alive, right now, ruling and reigning, and He’s still doing today what He did when He walked the earth. The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised to life. How do I know this?

Because the tomb is empty.

Have I ever seen someone raised to life? No, but herein lies the rub. Just because I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not possible and He’s not still doing it. Don’t think so? Okay, do you believe in nuclear bombs? Have you ever seen one explode? Then how do you know they’re real?

See what I mean?

When I finished my first book, If the Tomb Is Empty, I knew I wanted to walk back up Calvary—also known as Mount Moriah and Golgotha—here to this acre or two of land. To that parking lot. To this tomb. And then walk you into and out of it. Why?

We find ourselves in a world that screams daily that God is a dead, indifferent tyrant content to watch us suffer. That’s your enemy speaking and that is a lie from the pit of hell.

Jesus, God made man, is alive. He’s undefeated and undefeatable. And He is deeply in love with you.

Anything Is Possible is part two of the story. In a sense, it’s the action plan. Or the “what next” plan. Think about it—if the tomb is empty, then nothing is impossible. And anything is possible. This does not mean we control the timeline and the “when” or the “what” or the “how” of any miracle. We don’t. He alone does. Jesus is not Aladdin, not a genie in a bottle, and calling yourself a Christian is not a magic wand to wave at your problems.

In the kingdom of God, Jesus heals “every disease and every affliction among the people” (Matt. 4:23). Luke says it this way: “Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, ‘You are the Son of God!’” (Luke 4:40–41). The question I want to ask you is simple: Is Jesus still doing this?

My answer is “Yes. He is.” I do not see an expiration date on the work of Jesus in my Bible.

Here’s how I know this is true. When I was a sophomore in college, I got out of class, went to my fraternity house, walked into my room, and checked my answering machine. If you’re in your twenties, an answering machine is like a machine that held your voice mail, usually on a cassette tape. And to make it even more crazy, it was attached to a landline. Anyway, I pushed “play,” and my mom’s voice erupted from the speaker. She was freaking out. “Joby, you have to pray. Your Mimi—” (Everybody needs a Mimi, right? She was my grandma on my mom’s side.) “—Your Mimi was having a heart catheterization, and they’ve clipped her aorta, and she’s bleeding out.” Mimi was at Marion Memorial Hospital. I don’t know why you call any hospital “Memorial”—that’s a terrible idea. But anyway, Marion is like a suburb of Dillon, where I’m from. It’s smaller than my church. My mom continued freaking out. “You need to pray, because she’s bleeding out.”

They life-flighted my Mimi to Charleston and the Medical School of South Carolina. I went to my room, I got my Bible, and I started praying. Multiple times in the Bible, Jesus says something like, Ask whatever you will in my name, and it will be given to you (John 15:7). Now, if you’re new to Bible study, that doesn’t mean cash, cars, and prizes. Jesus is not a vending machine. But it still means what it says.

And so I got on my knees. And, in a way that I have a hard time explaining, I felt the presence of God with much fear and trembling on my part. I was just begging God to save my Mimi. Just save her. All I could think was that she was bleeding out in this helicopter. So as boldly as I knew how, I asked God to stop the bleeding. He told me to ask in the name, in line with the character and nature of Jesus. So I did. I asked and asked and prayed and prayed.

When the helicopter landed in Charleston, we got a phone call saying that the bleeding had stopped. For no apparent reason. It was just gone. I got in my truck the next day, and I drove down to Marion from Richmond, and I opened the door in my grandma’s house, and there was Mimi just vacuuming. “Oh, hey, sugar. Come on in.” All right. Forty-eight hours after almost bleeding out, she was serving me sweet tea and fried chicken in the name of Jesus. How do you explain that? Simple.

Because the tomb is empty, then Mimi can vacuum.

I am writing to encourage you, to bolster your wall, to put all your faith and trust in Him. And stay there. Even when it’s really hard. Now let me take you back to one of my favorite stories—which, by the way, was an actual event. This really happened. In the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar commanded everyone under the sound of his voice to bow down and worship the idols he’d made. Three Hebrews by the name of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego chose not to. Can you see the picture? There’s a sea of people on their faces worshiping a golden idol save three guys standing in the middle. Nebuchadnezzar asks them, “Guys, have you lost your mind? Is it true you don’t serve my gods or the golden image I set up?” Then he gives them a second chance, saying, “If you don’t worship, I’m throwing you into the furnace.” Then he mocks them with this: “And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” (Dan. 3:15). Their lives are on the line. Bow or die. But look at their response, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Dan. 3:16–18).

Now notice what happens. They obey God and are thrown in the furnace. They endure the fire. God allows it. But when Nebuchadnezzar opens the door again, he and all his leaders gather around and discover that “the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them” (Dan. 3:27). And there is another in the fire that is like the Son of God. Think about it. The furnace was heated up seven times its normal temperature, and yet they didn’t even smell like smoke.

I’m writing this hoping and praying that the Holy Spirit will do in you and me what He did in them. That we would believe despite what we can see. Paul spoke to this when he encouraged the Corinthians, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).

Faith in what? The resurrection of Jesus. This empty tomb.

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