Jesus: The Man Who Changed HistorySample

Jesus made some big claims and stirred up the hopes and dreams of many.

And then he died.

His body was put in a tomb.

Hope was extinguished.

It was over.

Mark 16:6

“You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

First century people knew just as well as twenty-first century people that dead men do not rise from the dead. And yet, in the space of a few weeks the disciples were proclaiming to crowds of people that Jesus was alive. Their witness testimony ended up turning the world upside down. And many of them were eventually killed for holding to their firm conviction that Jesus was alive.

So what changed? What caused this huge paradigm shift?

Jesus gave them, and gives us, proof that it is really him, really risen.

He speaks. He eats. He appears to many. He carries the scarred nail-marks.

The events of Easter are the events of history, backed up by evidence that the eyewitnesses were willing to die to corroborate.

The resurrection of Jesus gives us hope.

It means that, with Jesus, the worst thing is never the last thing.

It means that those who put their trust in him have a certain hope for the future, based on true events in the past.

And that really is the best news ever.