March 31, 2024

March 31st, 2024

“It’s All About Jesus!”
The Resurrection
After Jesus rose from the dead early on Sunday morning, the first person who saw him was Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom he had cast out seven demons…Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. – Mark 16:9; John 20:6-7 (NLT)
“Do You Believe in The Resurrection?”

Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? I mean, let’s be honest. It’s a crazy story. If you saw a man executed before your very eyes and saw that same man sealed in a grave, would YOU believe it if someone told you He had come back to life? But the resurrection became the CENTRAL truth of the Christian faith. Without the resurrection, Jesus is just another martyr dying for a cause. But if the resurrection is true, then Jesus is who He claimed to be—God in the flesh. And He is Lord over ALL!
The religious leaders drummed up the lie that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body. They claimed that the disciples were spreading the story of Jesus’ resurrection to just stir people up. How do we know the resurrection wasn’t just an elaborate hoax? Well, I’m actually going to talk about that in my Easter message at church today (shartelchurch.org), but let me give you two small details from the scriptures that I’m not talking about in my sermon that are clues that the disciples were telling the truth.
The first is Mary Magdalene. She is reported in all four gospels as the first person to see Jesus and report it to the disciples. Think about this for a second. If you were going to lie about the resurrection, would you really choose a woman who was known to have a shady past and had been demon-possessed? Most people ALREADY thought she was crazy! Besides, women weren’t even allowed to legally testify in court, which is why Paul most likely left the women out of his resurrection discourse in 1 Corinthians 15. No, if you were going to try and pull off a hoax, you would choose the most reliable source that you know people would trust. Not a Mary Magdalene.
The other small detail is the folded head covering and the linens lying in the tomb. Who UNWRAPS a dead body before stealing it? That’s crazy! Touching a dead person was already a repulsive idea to the Jews and one that made them ceremoniously unclean. But unwrapping the body would be disgusting. And taking the time to fold the head covering would take someone who was obsessed with being tidy. That’s just not the way a bunch of disciples who were in a hurry to get in and out would do it.
There are SO MANY reasons to believe the resurrection was real. Not the least of which are the testimonies of all of us who could tell you what the resurrected Christ has done for us. Trust me, my friends, Jesus is ALIVE! Invite His resurrecting power into your life to change YOU! That’s God’s Word for you today.