What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?

Perhaps you are familiar with the 1946 movie classic It’s A Wonderful Life. In that famous film, the lead character, who is played by Jimmy Stewart, catches a glimpse of what life would have been like if he had never been born.

This morning, I’d like to take that same concept and apply it to Jesus’ life. What if Jesus had never been born? At Christmas, we celebrate his birth. But what if he had not been born? What if Christianity had never come into existence? What if there had never been an institution called the church? What would the world be like? Would it be much different from the world as we know it today?

Down through the years, many critics of Christianity have blamed the teaching of Jesus for all sorts of societal problems. They claim that the world would have been a much better place—more enlightened, more educated, more humane—if Jesus and the church that he founded had never existed. Is that an accurate assessment? Let’s think about that this morning.

The Roman Empire in the first century, for all its supposed sophistication, was a rather brutal place. For starters, half of the population were slaves who had absolutely no legal rights. For example, if a man who owned slaves were murdered, all of his slaves would be executed because it was simply assumed that one of them was guilty.

Infanticide was routinely practiced. Unwanted babies were left to die from exposure or by being eaten by wild animals. If you were a child in the Roman Empire, your chances of living beyond the age of 8 were less than 50/50.

The average life expectancy for an adult was only 30–40 years. There was no social welfare system and no charitable organizations to take care of you should you run into problems. If you were elderly and unable to work for a living, you might be disposed of by being given poison to drink. The practice of suicide was widespread. Life was cheap in the Roman Empire.

There were no hospitals for you to go to if you were sick. The only places for healing were pagan temples where superstitious rituals were performed in the hopes of making the sick well. And disease flourished in that society, because principles of sanitation were unknown. Plagues and epidemics routinely struck down large numbers of the population.

For entertainment, the Romans indulged in the blood sports of the Coliseum, getting their kicks from watching people be torn apart by wild animals, or seeing gladiators fight each other to the death.

Many of their leading politicians and rulers were bloodthirsty madmen who committed unbelievable atrocities. Their government was corrupt and capricious. Civil wars and coups were a regular occurrence.

In fact, the only reason we look back today on Rome as being a sophisticated society is that it was so much more advanced than any other civilization or culture that preceded it. If Rome was bad, everything else was infinitely worse!

This was the world into which Jesus Christ was born. And his followers were citizens of that world—people who had been raised in that society, who were children of that culture.

Did Jesus personally impact them for the better? Did He create positive change in their lives? Did His teaching cause them to rise above their culture, and did they, in turn influence their culture for the better? Well, there is a great deal of evidence that they did.

To begin with, Jesus taught that the individual is important. He personally went out of his way to identify and associate with people who were regarded to be unclean or somehow “sub-human”. He cared for the poor. He touched the lepers. He hung out with sinners and Samaritans.

And he did that to show that each individual might come into a personal relationship with God. Jesus taught that each and every human being matters infinitely to God, because he is made in the image of God. There are no unimportant people.

That had profound implications for the way that the followers of Jesus began to view other human beings. In a culture which believed that life was cheap and disposable, the early Christians began to teach that life was sacred and to be protected—no matter whose life it was. They began to uphold the sanctity of human life.

One practical result was that the early Christians stopped the practice of killing babies. They would not practice abortion or infanticide. We have a letter which was written in the second century by one Roman to another in which he describes Christians in the following terms: “they marry and beget children, but they do not destroy their offspring.”

Not only did the early Christians not destroy their own children; they began to rescue the children of others. They would go outside of the cities to the places where infants were taken to die of exposure, and they would rescue those babies from certain death, adopt them, and raise them to become Christians.

If you think that that is something that only happened way back in the first or second centuries, you would be wrong. There are many non-Christian cultures in which infanticide is still practiced today, and tragically, America is becoming one of those places. But everywhere that there are true followers of Jesus Christ, they are battling to safeguard the sanctity of human life.

In the early part of this century, Christian missionaries went out into the islands of the Pacific, where many of the tribes practiced cannibalism. But when they believed the Gospel message, those islanders stopped being cannibals.

Author James Hefley tells the story of how, during World War II, an American G.I. found himself stationed on one of those remote islands in the S. Pacific that the missionaries had visited many years before. One day that soldier met one of the natives. The native happened to be able to speak English quite well. In fact, he was even carrying a Bible.

The soldier pointed to the Bible and said “You know, we educated people don’t put much faith in that Book anymore.” To which the native replied “Well it’s a good thing for you that we do. Otherwise, you’d be in here by now.” And he patted his stomach.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ brings positive change wherever it goes.

I mentioned earlier that there were no charitable institutions in the Roman Empire—no hospitals, no social welfare programs, no concern for people in distress. In fact, the Roman writer Polybius said “In Rome, no one ever gives away anything to anyone if he can help it.”

But Jesus taught his followers to give and to have mercy on the downtrodden of society. He taught them to have compassion for the poor and the sick, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner. And the early Christians began to do just that.

Dr. Kenneth Scott Latourette was a great historian who taught at Yale University. He tells us that the early Christians introduced two revolutionary concepts to Roman society.

1. They taught that becoming a Christian meant becoming a giver. Giving was an obligation in the early church, whether you were rich or poor, slave or free. You gave according to your ability. They took seriously the teaching of 2 Corinthians 8:9 which says of Jesus that “though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that we through his poverty might become rich.” The early Christians discovered tremendous joy and freedom in giving.

2. They gave, not just to their own group—not just to other Christians—but to those outside of the church. They gave to the pagans. They gave to help those who were persecuting them. They gave to their enemies. And their enemies noticed.

In fact, the last Roman Emperor who tried to stamp out the Christians was a man named Julian. And he said this in frustration: “It is disgraceful that these Christians not only support their own poor, they support ours as well.”

On occasion, when there were famines or natural disasters, the Roman government came through with some relief. But that relief never got to the people who really needed it. It was gobbled up by the wealthy upper classes, the civil servants, and the government workers before it ever got to the common people.

But the Christians went out into the streets and ministered to the needy. And through the centuries since Rome, whenever there has been disaster, wherever there has been suffering, that’s where you’ll find the followers of Jesus, ministering to people’s needs.

During the Middle Ages, the monks of the Catholic Church lived very humble lives and helped the poor in many practical ways. It is widely ignored or forgotten that the Roman Catholic Church—for all its abuses and excesses down through history—did set aside 25% of each parish’s resources for the relief of the sick and destitute. Speaking of medieval Europe, historian Will Durant says “the Church was a continent-wide organization for charitable aid.”

And the same is true today. You look at many of the major relief organizations in the world. They were started by Christians. The Salvation Army. The YMCA. The International Red Cross, which was started by a Swiss banker named Henry Dunant.

Dunant was an evangelical Christian. Back in 1859, while traveling in Italy—a country which was in much turmoil. He came upon the aftermath of a battle near the town of Solferino and he was appalled at the lack of care and provision for the men who had been wounded. Many of them lay dying simply for lack of medical supplies. He couldn’t forget what he saw and he became convinced that God was calling him to do something about it.

So he wrote a book, which he called the “Memory of Solferino”. And in the book he proposed setting up a neutral, international body that would provide medical and physical assistance to people who had been devastated by warfare. The response to his book was overwhelming, and the result was the founding of a new organization.

When he was looking for a symbol and a name for this new organization, Henry Dunant settled upon a simple red cross—the symbol of Jesus, the symbol of Christianity—to represent what he was trying to do. In fact, that symbol, because it is associated with Christianity, was not acceptable to the Muslim nations, so they adopted their own symbol, the red crescent. Now the International Red Cross is not a Christian organization. But it was founded by a Christian who was concerned for the needs of others.

I don’t have time to tell you the stories of George Mueller, a Christian who established orphanages in England, or Robert Raikes, a Christian who who founded the Sunday School so that the children who worked in the factories of 18th century England could learn to read and write. Or William Booth, a Christian who founded the Salvation Army in order to feed and clothe the homeless people he saw on the streets of 19th century London.

Go to Calcutta, India today—one of the poorest, most miserable cities on earth. Go to the worst neighborhood of Calcutta and you’ll find in the midst of that cesspool of human suffering a bright, shining light of hope. A little hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity, headed by a simple, elderly Albanian nun who loves Jesus. Her name is Mother Teresa, and she writes “Today God has sent us into the world as he sent Jesus, to show God’s love to the world. And we must sacrifice to show that love, just as Jesus made the greatest sacrifice of all.”

In the Roman Empire, there were no hospitals, other than medical dressing tents for soldiers who were wounded in battle. But the early Christians began to provide shelter and treatment for the sick. They couldn’t build hospitals, because Christianity was still an outlaw religion. But by the year 325 AD., Christianity had become accepted. And in that year, at the Council of Nicea, the church authorized the bishops of each area to build a hospital in each major city of the empire, for the care of the sick and suffering.

The oldest hospital still functioning anywhere in the world today is the Hotel Dieu in Paris, founded by Christians. The oldest hospital in the Western Hemisphere is the Jesus of Nazareth Hospital in Mexico City, which was founded by the Spaniards in 1524.

Many of the most revolutionary developments in medical science and care for the sick have come from the hands of committed Christians. Dr. Louis Pasteur did research into bacteriology which led to the practice of pasteurization, sterilization, and the development of vaccinations against many diseases. He was a committed Christian who had an unshakeable faith in God and the Gospel.

The same is true of Joseph Lister, who helped to develop antiseptic surgery. There are many other names I could give you of followers of Jesus Christ who have been on the very forefront of scientific discovery through the ages.

Yet many people nowadays have accepted the popular media portrayal of Christians as backward, ignorant hillbillies who believe in myths.

The truth is that the followers of Jesus Christ have been the foremost adherents of education, exploration, and discovery down through the ages. Because they believe that all truth is God’s truth and we need not fear that truth wherever it leads us.

Jesus taught us that we are each important to God. And God thought enough of us to want to reveal His truth to us in a Book—the Bible. Now if we’re going to be able to understand that truth, we’re going to have to be able to read. And if we’re going to be able to read, we’re also going to be able to write.

And that’s why Christians have always been the pioneers of language translation, literacy, book publishing, communication, and education for the masses. It’s because Christianity is based on the Word.

Way back in the 9th century, a couple of monks named Cyril and Methodius went from northern Greece into Central Europe to teach the Slavic people about Jesus. First thing they had to do was figure out the language, and to do that, they had to develop an alphabet. Well, they did. And the result is the Cyrillic alphabet that is still used in Russia today.

Back in the 15th century, a German Christian named Johann Gutenberg figured out a way to modify his wine press so that it would press pages of paper down onto a block that contained movable type. Thus you had the printing press. And why did Gutenberg come up with that idea? Because he wanted to print copies of the Bible so that everyone could have one.

Then Martin Luther came along and said that not only should everyone have a copy of the Bible, everyone ought to be able to read and interpret it and understand it for himself. And that idea—one of the primary ideas of the Protestant Reformation—sowed the seeds for the idea of universal education.

And the Puritans carried that idea to the new world, and within twenty years of their settling in Massachusetts, they did something about it. They passed a law which called for the establishment of public schooling for everyone. Their law was called the Old Deluder Act because they believed that it was the strategy of Satan, the Old Deluder, to keep their children ignorant so that they would never be able to read the Bible.

This idea spread to the other colonies, and thus you had the beginnings of the public education system in America today. And when it comes to university education, you might be interested to know that virtually all of the first 100 colleges and universities started in the United States were started by Christians.

Harvard University got its start from a donation of money and books from the Rev. John Harvard. It was originally a place for the training of ministers. Engraved in stone at the entrance to Harvard you’ll find this inscription:

“After God had carried us safe to New England and we had built our houses, provided necessities for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government; one of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance learning…dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.”

Dartmouth was founded to train missionaries to the Indians. William and Mary was created that “the Christian faith might be propagated”. Columbia University was opened in 1754 with the expressed purpose “to teach and engage young people to know God in Jesus Christ.” The first president of Princeton University said “Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”

Now most of these institutions have long since departed from the principles and purposes of the founders, but the people who established these institutions were followers of Jesus Christ.

So as we look back on the past 2,000 years of history, you have to admit that the followers of Jesus have made quite an impact. And there are many other areas that I haven’t touched upon.

If Jesus had never been born, and lived, and taught the things he did, none of this would have happened. Because there wouldn’t have been the motivation in people’s hearts to do these things for other people who were less fortunate.

Jesus didn’t come to create social change. He came to create personal change. Because only personal change can create social change.

The reason this world is such a dysfunctional place is that you have people living in it who have dysfunctional hearts. Because people who have dysfunctional hearts contribute to dysfunctional families. And enough dysfunctional families living together in close proximity creates a dysfunctional neighborhood.

Enough dysfunctional neighborhoods creates dysfunctional towns and cities. And enough dysfunctional towns and cities creates a dysfunctional nation. And enough dysfunctional nations makes a dysfunctional world.

But it all starts with the human heart. And Jesus came here to fix our hearts. To get us back to God. We’ve all got sin and hatred in our hearts. But Jesus came to take that sin away.

And when you get your heart fixed, it makes you want to:

- help your neighbor instead of hurting him

- bless him instead of blaming him

- love him instead of leaving him the way he is.

And all of that creates social change. And if Jesus hadn’t been born, none of that would be possible.

I’m glad he came, and I hope you are too.