Bible Reading: 1 John 1:1-4

We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is Jesus Christ, the Word of life.   1 John 1:1

For centuries, some of the brainiest people have attacked Christianity as ridiculous. Problem is, many have ignored or tried to explain away the biggest proof of our faith—the resurrection of Jesus. But the historical evidence just can’t be ignored. The facts of the empty tomb are as powerful today as they were two thousand years ago. Here are some of the facts:

1. Jesus of Nazareth—a Jewish prophet who claimed to be the Savior written about in the Jewish Scriptures—was arrested, judged a political criminal, and executed by Roman crucifixion.

2. Three days after Christ’s death and burial, some women who went to his tomb discovered that his body was gone.

3. In the following days the disciples of Jesus claimed that God had raised him from the dead and that he had appeared to them at various times before ascending into heaven.

4. From that core of early disciples, the message of Jesus Christ spread throughout the Roman Empire and has continued to change people’s lives down through the centuries.

So did the Resurrection really happen? There are only two possible answers to that question. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was either the world’s most wicked hoax—or the most astonishing fact in human history.

If the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus were not true, they could easily have been disproved in the early days of Christianity. The New Testament descriptions of the Resurrection spread while the men and women who witnessed the events were still alive. If the accounts were not true, those people could easily have spoken up. And if the writers of the Bible books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John made up the story of the Resurrection, their report never would have lasted past the first century. These books were based on facts everyone knew. And even people who hated Jesus and wanted to disprove the Resurrection couldn’t deny what everybody else knew to be fact: the tomb was empty and Christ was alive.

None of us has seen the empty tomb or the risen Christ, but we have the reliable, time-honored testimony of the New Testament writers. Christ is risen!

TALK: How would you answer a non-Christian friend who said Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead?

PRAY: Pray for a friend who doesn’t believe the truth of the Resurrection.

ACT: Who can you explain this truth to? Share the powerful evidence that Jesus is alive!

 

 

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