A perfect Easter Sunday essay from Mark Tapscott, thankfully not paywalled.<\/p>\n
\nWhy Easter Is About the Single Most Important Fact in All History<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
How would you respond were you asked: what is the single most important fact in all of human history?<\/p>\n
Rome fell? Roland died so Charlemagne could defeat the Saracens? The printing press? The U.S. Constitution? America beat the Nazis to the atomic bomb?<\/p>\n
Those and many more facts have each arguably changed the course of history and could thus be cited with equal assurance of their relevance. However, there is one fact that not only fundamentally altered human history but defined reality for every person who ever has or ever will live.<\/p>\n
That fact is the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Why the empty tomb? Because on Easter morning and for 40 days thereafter, Jesus was seen, touched, heard, and spoke to His disciples, then to other individuals in and around Jerusalem, and ultimately to more than 500 individuals.<\/p>\n
The tomb was empty because Jesus was literally resurrected from the dead, thus validating everything He claimed about Himself, including “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6).<\/p>\n
But wait a minute, you may be thinking: what if somebody stole the dead body of Jesus and then falsely claimed that He had been resurrected? Well, let’s examine that possibility.<\/p>\n
There are only three candidate groups who logically might have had a motive for stealing the body of Jesus. First, there are the disciples themselves. Critics have long claimed the disciples stole the body and then invented the Resurrection myth.<\/p>\n
Here’s why that claim is preposterous: the disciples scattered when Jesus was arrested. They were terrified that they would be next. Peter’s thrice denial of even knowing Jesus is indicative of the group’s cowardice.<\/p>\n
Why is that significant? None of the disciples is known to have had any military training, yet we are to believe that this scattered crew of cowards somehow found the courage to overcome a crack unit of the Roman Legion that was guarding the tomb, or buy them off, then hide Jesus’ body where it would never be found, and afterwards go out and tell everybody that Jesus was God?<\/p>\n
The second candidate group would be Jesus’ enemies, chiefly, the Pharisees and Sadducees who were the religious leaders of Israel. Throughout His three-year ministry, Jesus had tangled with these religious leaders who accused Him of blasphemy for claiming to be God-become-man. That’s why they demanded that Pilate order Jesus crucified.<\/p>\n
But let’s say they did steal Jesus’ dead body because they were quite aware that He had said He would “rise again.” (Mark 9:31). Weeks after Jesus’ crucifixion and burial Peter spoke to thousands of people on the Day of Pentecost, explicitly claiming Jesus was alive. Three thousand people became Jesus’s followers that day and the Christian church was born.<\/p>\n
But if they had stolen His body from the tomb, as soon as Peter began claiming the Resurrection, Jesus’s enemies would have rolled his stinking, rotting corpse down Jerusalem’s Main Street to prove He was dead, not alive.<\/p>\n
Then they would likely have arrested Peter and any of the rest of the disciples they could lay their hands on and crucified them. Instead of the day it was born, Pentecost would have been the day the Christian church died.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
More follows, all of it well worth a read. Got a few more Easter browser tabs open, which I\u2019m thinking I\u2019ll just append to this post as updates, maybe.<\/p>\n
Update!<\/em><\/strong> This one seems to be making the rounds all over the place today, as well it should be.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \nHow they lit NYC for Easter in 1956. Crosses along Lower Manhattan Skyline, New York. The Three Crosses of Calvary… pic.twitter.com\/lxpCA4fNHa<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Sachin Jose (@Sachinettiyil)<\/p>\n