With Great Joy

“And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy...” Matthew 28:8

After the Sabbath, it was still dawn when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb. What they found was inexplicable, the heavy stone was rolled away, and an angel whose appearance was like lightning, said to them, “Do not be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.” 

The resurrection of Jesus? Fact or fiction? One would think that most skeptics would debunk Jesus’ resurrection with theories like mass hallucination or the idea that He did not really die, but they can’t. Our belief in Jesus’ resurrection is based on eyewitness accounts written by men willing to die for it. Those men, Peter, James and John, knew the truth. They saw Jesus. They preached it, and they were able to convince so many others by the power of their conviction. St. Paul, a skeptic, became a Christian three years after Jesus’ death. 

Bart Ehrman, a very well known skeptic, a non-Christian, says, "Paul got to interview Peter and James. I'd like to interview Peter and James. This is as close to eye witness testimony as we can get. It's very close to eye witness testimony.” 

Another proof of the resurrection is the gospel account tells us that WOMEN discovered the empty tomb. Women in those times couldn’t give a testimony in court. They were second class citizens. They were not considered credible witnesses. If the story was made up, it would never have included women as the first to be at the scene. And then there were the radical transformations of Peter, who went from coward to a champion of the truth, James who thought Jesus was crazy to the leader of the Jerusalem

Church, and countless others martyrs of the faith. 

God made sure that what we believe in is based on defendable facts. There is so much more evidence about Jesus and His life, death and resurrection, than there is about Julius Caesar and Alexander! Yes, Jesus is risen! Alleluia!