What was it like for the disciples when they saw Jesus after His resurrection?
How do we describe the feeling, emotion, and huge importance and historical significance of this dead man coming back to life?
In Main Street, I told a story about being at a funeral all sad and in mourning… someone everyone loved and respected had died. What if, while you were sitting in the funeral service, the casket top flips open on its own and the dead person pops up alive?!
How would everyone respond?
They would FREAK OUT!
Some would scream. Others would faint. Everyone’s adrenaline would coarse a little stronger than normal. If something like this really happened it would be the leading news story on NBC News! Hopefully someone would have caught it on video, but if it wasn’t they would interview all the witnesses as well as the dead–now alive–person! If it wasn’t caught on video, the rest of the world would have to ask themselves these questions:
- Do I believe this really happened?
- Do I believe the eyewitnesses?
- Do I believe this wasn’t some magical stunt or the dead person really wasn’t dead, but just faking it for attention?
- Do I really believe this?
These are the same questions we have to ask and answer some 2,000 years later:
- Do I really believe Jesus came back to life?
- Do I believe this resurrection account?
- Do I trust the eyewitness testimony?
- Or is it some fanciful story that was pre-arranged and manipulated to further this Jesus’ cause?
- Do I really believe this?
We have eyewitness testimony in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who all have varying perspectives on what happened in the life of Jesus as well as his death and resurrection. As time comes and goes, why does this one story so capture us that we’re telling it 2,000 years later? Because nothing like it has ever happened before! And we want to share it with the whole world (based on the eyewitness testimony) because it has to do with humanity’s salvation!
Do you believe it?
