by Mike Moore
We call it Easter. The word appears only once in the Bible and it is not referring to the event we celebrate this Sunday. It is one of my most favorite days of the year.
He is alive.
And everything is different because of it.
Education is great. But no one ever educated someone to walk out of a tomb. Medical science is wonderful. But it has limits. Even the best doctors and nurses can only keep us alive for a few years. Death seems so final. We talk about final expenses and final illness and final wishes. Philosophies are often nice, but no one ever thought his way out of a grave. Diplomacy is often impressive. No one ever agreed to rise from the dead. Military power is sometimes awesome. But no army or navy ever freed a dead person. And congresses and parliaments don’t have the power to conquer death.
Did it really happen? The evidence is overwhelming. And the wild theories giving other choices are really weak alternatives. Wrong tomb? The authorities could go to the right one and produce the body. Animals stole the body? Sure, a few animals got together and rolled away a two-ton stone and overpowered the guards. Try again. The followers stole it? Hardly. They had forsaken Him in a cowardly way. And if they stole it, would they have been willing to die for a hoax?
Great legal and historical scholars have studied the facts and decided Christ did indeed rise. Lawyer Frank Morison set out to refute the evidence and ended up writing a book called,
Who Moved the Stone? supporting the resurrection. Simon Greenleaf of Harvard Law School concluded that the resurrection was one of the best-supported events in history, according to the laws of legal evidence administered in courts of justice.
When I was a youngster in school we had holidays at Easter. We had the Friday before and the Monday after off from class. Later, the holidays grew to a full week and became known as Spring Break and they were not always at Easter time. People have forgotten in many ways what the date on the calendar means.
Spring is about new beginnings and new life after the deadness of winter. Easter is about much more than new clothes and ham dinners and colored eggs. Many will not give it a second thought, just as Christmas is only presents, food, Rudolph, and the office party. Some folks will go to church, just as they do on Mother’s Day or Christmas and feel as though they are doing God a favor.
Go ahead, visit Mecca and see the tomb of Mohammed, or view the grave of some other religious founder. Honor some dead leader. If it makes sense to follow someone who cannot defeat death, go ahead. Not me. If it does not work for the founder, the leader, I don’t want it. Losing coaches don’t conduct clinics on how to win games. Losing generals don’t tell how to win battles. But the One who rolled away a stone and walked out of a tomb, can tell me about this life and the next and victory over death. He tells us to trust Him for our eternal well-being. The Bible puts it so well, “Why seek you the living among the dead?” and “He is risen, as He said.”
He is alive.