Watergate and the Resurrection

This week, we as Christians, celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. In Chapter 6 in Charles Colson's classic "Loving God", he takes a look at the conspiracy theory concerning the resurrection in the light of the famous Watergate cover up.
For those who are too young to remember, I was 12, Watergate is a hotel in Washington DC that, at the time, housed the Democratic National Committee (DNC) office. The president was Richard Nixon and he was running for re-election. Little did he know that he was about to win, at that time, in the biggest landslide in the history of the nation.
On a warm Saturday afternoon, June 17, 1972, Colson first heard about the break in of the DNC when he was called on the phone and asked about it. He didn't think much about it and in November Nixon was re-elected President. But the shadow of Watergate stilled loomed. In February, with the Vietnam War finally over, Colson went to the Oval Office and told President Nixon that "Whoever did order Watergate, let it out...let's get rid of it now. Take our losses." Now while Nixon didn't order the break in, he did something much, much worst. He ordered the cover up and the obstruction of the investigation.
On March 21 of 1973 Colson talks of the first serious discussion of criminal involvement. While he wasn't involved with it at this time because he was no longer working for President Nixon, Colson was recorded as saying he was worried about someone close to the president being charged with obstruction of justice. Then on April 9, John Dean, special counsel for the president met with the Watergate prosecutors and revealed the cover up.
Colson writes, "With the most powerful office in the world at stake, a small band of hand-picked loyalists, no more than ten of us, could not hold a conspiracy together for more than two weeks. Yet even the prospect of jeopardizing the President we'd worked so hard to elect, of losing the prestige, power and personal luxury of our office was not enough incentive to make this group of men contain a lie."
He continues, "As I reflect today, was the pressure really all that great; at that point there had certain to be keen embarrassment; at the worst, some might go to prison, though that possibility was by no means certain. But no one was in grave danger; no one's life was at stake. Yet after just a few weeks the natural human instinct for self-preservation was so overwhelming that the conspirators, one by one, deserted their leader, walked away from their cause, turned their back on their power, prestige and privilege."
What does their have to do with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ you might ask?  Well Colson talks of the modern criticism of the historic truth of Christianity boiling down to three propositions: 1--the disciples were just mistaken; 2--the disciples knowingly perpetrated a myth or 3--the eleven disciples conceived of a Passover Plot--robbed the body out of the tomb and got rid of it and to their dying breaths maintained conspiratorial silence, even though most of them was eventually give up their own life for that seemingly lie.
Blaise Pascal, the brilliant mathematician, scientist, inventor and follower of Christ, observed that "man in his normal state will renounce his beliefs just as readily as Peter renounced Jesus before the Resurrection. But as the same Peter discovered after the Resurrection, there is a power beyond man that causes him to forsake all. It is the power of the God who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ."
Have you experienced the power of Jesus' resurrection? Ask yourself this, are you willing to forsake all to follow Christ? If you are not sure please email me at dmccrosky@comcast.net and I will be glad to help you know, that you know,  that you know.