He has risen indeed!

“Christ is risen.  He has risen indeed!”  How blessed we are to go to church two thousand years after the resurrection and celebrate what took place on that Sunday so long ago!

“On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they [the women] went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.  And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.  And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.  'Remember how he told you, while he was in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day arise."  And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest.  Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.” Luke 24

Miraculously, Jesus did what he said he was going to do—he defeated the grave and death itself.

Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Why, why not? Because the resurrection changes everything.  Jesus had said he would die and be buried, and on the third day, would rise again¹  Here’s the thing:  IF Jesus did not rise from the dead, it would have made him a liar, and nothing else he taught would have been credible;  IF he did not rise from the dead, we would not serve a living Savior and Lord, and IF Jesus did not rise from the dead, we would not have the hope of resurrection after death ourselves to make our home with him forever.

Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins."² – That is right, Paul!  The Christian faith would not have gone forward if Jesus had been killed, and never heard from again. The disciples would have remained hopeless, died in shame, and that would have been the end of Christianity.  Alas, it was not, and we are evidence of that. The young Jewish-Christian church started in Jerusalem, and soon spread to Mediterranean lands and beyond--which assures us that these young believers, who were enduring persecution, saw and believed in the risen Lord.

In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all.³  

Paul wrote the most extensive biblical treatise on the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, ‘I delivered to you that … Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, (Peter) then to the twelve.  After that he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. (so Paul was an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus).⁴ These verses formed a creed that was recited in early Christian churches, and has been dated by scholars to within two to eight years of Jesus' resurrection.

Eyewitness accounts are the most valuable evidence in any matter or event being analyzed; 515 eyewitnesses, most of whom were still alive when this was written, could have refuted what was recorded about Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, but they did not.  Jesus talked, walked and ate with his disciples.

The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest symbol of hope for believers today. It means that we serve a living God!  Combined with our faith is the HOPE that there is a new world to come, and in that world, God will set the record straight. And besides, the resurrection is one more testament that God keeps his promises.

Let us conclude by saying, the Resurrection is the epicenter of belief.  It is not a belief that grew up within the church; it is the belief around which the church itself grew up, and the 'given' upon which its faith was based.⁵

From death to life . . . our Redeemer lives.  Nothing matters more than that.