by Rod D. Martin
March 27, 2016

Happy Easter dear family. It is a glorious day, precisely because though it involves a miracle, it is not mystical but historical. Christ is risen indeed.

There were close to 1,000 eyewitnesses to the risen Christ, in a pretty small, relatively low population area. The resurrection was not a lie one could get away with: He really did rise. And Paul preached in synagogues across the Mediterranean basin. Those Jews had family and commercial ties back home with whom they could verify events. Had these things not been true, not only would Christianity not have spread, it would have been a sick joke, dying out as quickly as it started.

Even more to the point: every Apostle except John was executed for his faith, and all of them could have avoided that if they had only recanted. Who knowingly dies for a lie? Either all of them were eyewitness, or they were a conspiracy if they were lying. Very few conspiracies long survive even when they are wildly profitable: these men suffered unending persecution and hardship, even unto death, and yet all maintained their identical testimony to the end.

Jesus, very God and very man, Creator and Savior, by His death paid the penalty for our sins, by His resurrection reversed the Fall and reigns on high, and by His acts enabled the Father’s adoption of all who call upon His name, so that our Savior is also our elder brother, and we are not condemned traitors, nor slaves, nor subjects, but sons and daughters of the King.

We are most blessed among all flesh. For not only are these things true, but our God is a God of evidence and truth: we have been asked to trust only that which is trustworthy. For this above all we may be grateful, on this the greatest day of this or any year.

Happy Easter.