Compassion in the face of unbelief

I once had a conversation with an Orthodox Jewish man who told me he would not discuss Jesus with me. His words were striking: “Speaking to you is like speaking with a Holocaust denier. Would you listen to a Holocaust denier? For the same reason, I won’t listen to anything you have to say.”

For this man, the resurrection of Jesus seemed to belong in the category of outrageous falsehood, unworthy of consideration.

He made discussion impossible and to even give space to such a conversation would be to legitimise something utterly repulsive.

Holocaust denial is one of the most tragic examples of wilful blindness in modern history. With so much testimony, documentation, and living memory, to deny it is to disregard overwhelming evidence. For my friend, the resurrection of Jesus seemed to belong in that same category: an outrageous falsehood, unworthy of consideration.

What struck me most was not his logic, but the conviction with which he held his position.

Denial, compassion & response

Denial, in any form, is rarely neutral. It is usually rooted in deep belief and reinforced by community, culture, and identity. For him, rejecting Jesus was not a casual choice but a defining boundary of faith and belonging.

Often, denial of Jesus is less a deliberate stance than the result of centuries of inherited teaching, absorbed without question.

This calls for compassion. When someone is blind to truth, our role is not to berate but to love. It is for us to pray, to care, and to patiently point to what God has made known.

Deborah Lipstadt, who famously stood against Holocaust denial in court, explained that her task was not to argue endlessly, but to keep pointing people back to the evidence. In the same way, as Christians, we do not need to win debates about Jesus. We simply need to encourage others to look again at the eyewitness accounts of His life, death, and resurrection.

Compassion also means remembering that those who deny are often sincerely convinced they are right. A person who denies the resurrection may sincerely believe there is no evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The issue is not only intellectual but spiritual.

And so, our posture matters deeply: prayer rather than debate; patience rather than pressure; remembering our own blindness before Christ opened our eyes. None of us came to faith because someone won an argument. We came to God because, in His mercy, He revealed Himself to us. He alone opened our blind eyes.

Compassion keeps us from becoming combative. It reminds us that our role is not to defend Jesus, but simply to bear witness to Him as Lord of all, living and powerful.

The truth of the resurrection does not need our protection; it demands proclamation. And that proclamation is most persuasive when it is soaked in love.

To deny is human. To open blind eyes is divine. Our calling is not to conquer denial, but to walk with compassion, pray with persistence, and trust that God alone can turn unbelief into faith.

When we meet people who reject Jesus, our first response should not be anger, defensiveness, or frustration, but compassion. Behind every attack, whether against historical events or spiritual truth, there is often pain, tradition, misunderstanding, or simply a worldview that feels too costly to challenge.

Let compassion steady our hearts.