The Resurrection (Part 4)

(16) The disciples were utterly transformed. Whereas before that Sunday the disciples were unsure, timid, doubting, and in general a lackluster bunch, afterwards to a man they were utterly, radically and completely transformed. They were quite literally new men. Suddenly these timid souls were totally dedicated to spreading the good news to anyone who would listen. Persecution didn’t stop them, opposition didn’t faze them, hatred didn’t intimidate them, hardship didn’t slow them down, the threat of martyrdom didn’t intimidate them. To a man they became dynamos of Christian evangelism. In the words of the Bible, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. These were the men who turned the world upside down.
I submit that the only possible answer is that these men met the risen Christ and he changed their lives forever.

(17) The early Christians all believed he had been raised.
This is nothing more than a simple historical observation. All the early Christians without exception believed that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. The Jewish Christians believed, but so did the Gentiles. Wherever the gospel went, it produced converts who joined in proclaiming the risen Christ.

(18) The resurrection was the centerpiece of their preaching.
It’s interesting to read the accounts of the early Christian sermons from the book of Acts. They all centered on the truth of Jesus’ resurrection. We today tend to focus more on the death of Christ. But it was not so in the beginning. The first Christians understood that without the resurrection, the crucifixion had no meaning.

(19) They died testifying to the reality of the resurrection.
Church history tells us that of the eleven original disciples (not counting Judas) plus Paul, all died violent deaths for their faith in Jesus. The one exception was John, who spent his final years imprisoned on the island of Patmos. Beyond that, thousands of Christians died in the various Roman persecutions. Why would men and women die for a myth or a legend? Why would the apostles die for Christ if they knew he had not risen from the dead?

(20) For 2,000 years no one has produced a convincing answer to the question, “If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, what happened to his body?”
This is the ultimate unanswered question. Where is the body of Jesus? No one throughout 2,000 years of history has provided a credible answer to that question. In fact, I will go so far as to state that no one ever will. People have searched the Holy Land and I can tell you that you can start in the north and dig to the south or start in the east and dig to the west. You’ll find bones everywhere you dig. But you won’t find the bones of Jesus because they aren’t there.

(21) This weekend over one billion Christians plus unite to proclaim that Jesus Christ is alive and well.
This weekend we join with Christians around the world to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. We stand in a long line of believers who proclaim with the angel, “He is not here, for he is risen, just as he said.”