Three days until Easter. This has become my favorite time of year, even over Christmas, which, I guess, is as it should be. Christmas woud be meaningless without Easter. The resurrection of Christ is the central focus of our faith. Christianity stands or falls on whether or not Christ is alive.
And He is. But how do we know this? Ever since I was growing up, I have heard sung in the church every year the Easter hymn, "He Lives." It was a favorite of my mother's. I like it, too. However, I have become increasingly aware of one problem in the lyric. Not that it's wrong exactly, but it is incomplete. The last line of the refrain says, "You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart." Well, if you have given your life to Him, He does dwell there through His Holy Spirit. But that is not the final arbiter of whether ot not Jesus is alive.
The fact is, anyone can have warm feelings in their heart from time to time about Jesus. Christians and non-Christians both can be moved by a song, a verse of Scripture, a kind deed done in His name. But feelings are not the proof that He is risen. Neither is the empty tomb. (Gasp!)
What sets Christianity apart from any other faith is that it claims to have happened as a real space/time event carried out by a real flesh and blood man who just happened to also be God in the flesh. The Gospel writers, Luke especially, set the life of Christ in the context of history, during the reigns of actual historical rulers.
But the real kicker comes to us in the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3 and following: "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance." He is about to give us the gospel in a nutshell. And just a reminder: The gospel is NEWS. It's not something we do, or something we live (a popular expression these days). You don't live news. You declare it or hear it, and if you hear it, then eventually you either accept or reject it. Now here comes the Good News: "...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures..." That is a fact. It happened on a particular day at a particular location (just outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem around AD 33), "...that He was buried..." (that is the proof that He died. They checked first, remember, and He was actually dead, which is why they pierced His side with a spear instead of breaking His legs as they did the thieves so they would die faster before Sabbath began. The blood and water that came out of His side was proof of death - so they buried Him). Next, ..."that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures"... (another fact) and here it comes, sports fans, the proof: "...and that He appeared..." See the pattern? Fact (died) Proof (buried) Fact (raised) Proof (appeared).
Paul goes on to say that He appeared to Peter, then to all the apostles, then to a crowd of over 500, then to his half brother, James, and finally to Paul himself a few years later. And he is careful to mention that many of these were still alive at the time of the writing of the Corinthian letter (at least 15 years later), and these were credible eyewitnesses.
Paul's entire argument about the resurrection in the remainder of the chapter is predicated on the fact that Christ appeared to eyewitnesses, all of whom were willing to die for what they had seen and believed. You don't die for something you know in your heart of hearts to be untrue. And you certainly don't die for a hallucination (one of the many silly attempts to deny the bodily resurrection of the Lord).
So does Christ live in my heart? Yes, as I hope He does in yours. But that's not how I know He lives. I know He lives because credible and courageous eyewitnesses said so and preached it throughout the whole known world and, in many cases, died martyrs' deaths for it. My faith is based on real historical fact and on time and space events.
Yes, I will continue to sing "He Lives!" But I will sing with even more conviction, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" and "Up From the Grave He Arose." and "Because He Lives, I Can Face Tomorrow." You ask me how I know He lives? I know because reliable people saw Him and touched Him and ate with Him, and then proclaimed Him and lived and died for Him - and their spiritual descendants still do. I am blessed to count myself among them. He is risen! He is risen indeed!
"And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him ... in Him are hidden all the treasures if wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 1:18-19, 2:3) So let's celebrate Easter like this was true - because it is.
