Easter is a wonderful time of year! Trees are budding, flowers are blooming, the grass is beginning to grow. Winter is over, spring has come. We see new life in nature all around us. What is Easter all about? For many people, the first things that come to mind at the mention of Easter are eggs and bunnies. Eggs and bunnies symbolize new life, but Easter is about more than just a spring celebration.
There once was an 8-year old boy named Philip. Philip attended a Sunday School class at church with other children his age. Now Philip was a bit slower than the other children and sometimes they would make fun of him. On Easter, the teacher of the class brought plastic eggs and instructed the children to go outside and fill the eggs with symbols of new life. So the children did just that and returned to the class to show what they had found. They opened their eggs to reveal flowers, butterflies, leaves and buds, but when it came to Philip’s turn to show his egg, there was nothing inside. The children began to laugh at him, Philip had done it wrong again. Finally, after the laughter had died down, Philip spoke in a soft voice, “I did do it right, I did. It’s empty because the tomb is empty!” Philip had it right, there is something more to Easter than eggs, bunnies and springtime. Easter has to do with an empty tomb, it has to do with the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus Christ came to this earth 2000 years ago, born of a virgin, fully human, fully divine and lived a sinless life. Then at the young age of 33, He was condemned to death for blasphemy, claiming to be God, and He was put to death by crucifixion. But the story doesn’t end there. Something remarkable happened three days after Jesus died. Some women went to His tomb on Easter morning and saw an angel who spoke to them. NLT Matthew 28:5-6 Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He has been raised from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying.” Jesus was alive again.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the best documented events in history. Jesus predicted His resurrection. Hundreds of people saw Jesus after He rose from the dead. Multiple eyewitnesses wrote accounts of seeing Jesus. The message of the resurrection was the core of the early Christian message. The rapid growth of the early church is powerful evidence of the truth of the resurrection. Those who dispute the resurrection of Jesus Christ have not examined the evidence, which is overwhelmingly convincing. If the resurrection really happened, which it did, why does it matter to someone living in 2005?
To hear more about this topic, listen to my March 27, 2005 message entitled Why The Resurrection Matters