From about 33 AD onwards we see a strange thing happening in Judea. A group of Jews are going about telling people that Jesus, who was given over by the Jews to be crucified on a Roman cross, had been vindicated by God as the Messiah of Israel and revealed to be the Son of God. By every standard this was a ridiculous claim. It was also dangerous; it would cause a lot of suffering for those who testified to this. Many of them would even die for their message. You would have to be pretty sure about something to give your life for it. So, what made them so sure that Jesus was the Son of God? They believed this because they had seen Jesus resurrected from the dead. They couldn’t deny it. No one at the time doubted that he had died, and they could not doubt that together they had seen him alive again. The early church was a resurrection movement. Everything for them flowed from their belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead and all of their beliefs and actions only make sense in the light of this. The historical phenomenon of the early church cannot be adequately explained unless we accept that these people were telling the truth. Given how much suffering this claim caused them, they would not have lied about this. But the truth of it is also seen in the power of their testimony. The resurrection meant that the way to the tree of life was opened and they lived in this reality. It changed everything for them and should for us too.
Ask God to fill you with his resurrection life.
Read Matthew 27:57-28:15 and Mark 15:42-16:14
