Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve always marvelled at the amount of faith an atheist has! To be an atheist I would have to believe that nothing produced everything, non-life produced life, randomness produced precision, chaos produced order, matter produced emotions, emptiness produced love, a vacuum produced imagination and matter produced a conscience and the ability to make and appreciate music, art, poetry, beauty, and creativity. I simply do not have that much faith!
Christians believe that the Easter story of the resurrection of Jesus is the pivotal moment in the whole of history. In fact, if Jesus never rose from the dead, Christianity itself would be dead!
A court of law relies heavily on “historical evidence.” That is, the testimony of eye witnesses. In the Bible we read in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, Paul writes that there were loads of eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. “He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him”.
This begs the question, why would the apostles lie? Liars always lie for selfish reasons. If they lied what was their motive? What did they get out of it? What they actually got out of it was misunderstanding, rejection, persecution, torture and martyrdom. Hardly a list of perks!
Many people through history have tried to disprove the resurrection. Possibly the most famous being the 20th century lawyer and journalist, Frank Morrison. He decided that he would disprove Christianity and the only way you can do that is to disprove the resurrection. He was a lawyer, he was a journalist, he knew how to find what he needed to argue his case, and he knew how to play around with the material, but in the process of writing his book he met the crucified and risen Jesus Christ and Frank Morrison ended up writing his book the other way around. He became convinced that the resurrection was true. His book is called ‘Who Moved The Stone?’
Lord Darling, a former Lord Chief Justice of England said: “In its favour as a living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in the verdict that the resurrection story is true.”
So my challenge to you is to research the evidence for yourself. A book I would recommend for starters is, “More Than A Carpenter” by Josh McDowell.
Blessings to you and all those you love and pray for.
Rev Steve
