A long time ago, there was a man who lived in the Middle East. People claimed, back then, that he could do miraculous things. He could make sick people better, they said. He could make blind people see, they said. He could even bring people back from the dead, they said.
This man also taught. He used Jewish scripture to tell people about God and God’s Kingdom. Yet there was something different about this teacher, the people claimed. He didn’t just teach; he taught with authority, as if he himself were the author of the text, they said. And some people didn’t like that. It made them angry, especially when he taught in a way that proclaimed that he himself – this man – that he was God. There was something about his words, his phrases, his teachings, something that made the religious leaders of the day declare him to be blaspheming, to be speaking disrespectfully and irreverently against their God. Yet not everyone thought he was blaspheming. They said that some still followed him.
They also said that this man was put to death by the Jewish leaders and the Roman government. They claimed that he hadn’t done anything wrong. They said that he was put to death in the Roman way of that time: like other criminals, nailed to a cross. They said he died, and all the people – his followers, the religious people, and the Roman officials – they all saw that he was, indeed, dead. They said that was the end of him.
And then, three days later, people began to say that the tomb in which he had been laid was empty. They said that they saw this man alive and walking around. They said that he had been resurrected, that death itself couldn’t hold him. They said that they had even walked with him, talked with him, eaten with him. More than five hundred people said they had been with him. They said that after a while with him, they saw him go up into heaven.
They said a lot of things about this man that sound hard to believe, and yet…yet so many people said it. So many people believed that what this man said and did was true. They proclaimed that they had, in fact, seen him alive and well after he had definitely been dead, and they risked their lives to tell others what they believed to be true – even to the point of death.
If what they said is true, if a perfect man really did walk this earth and do things that only God can do and claim to be God Himself, if this perfect man really did die and then come back to life, then this changes everything.
Praise:
Behold Our God by Sovereign Grace Music
King of Kings by Worship Initiative
Easter Song by Jess Ray
Learn More:
Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller
The Reason for God by Timothy Keller
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
Soaking in the Son 