How the Resurrection of Jesus Changed My Life Forever

International Easter Celebration — 2021

Easter Sunday is regarded as the most important Christian holiday, celebrated by Christians around the world to commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But as a teen and then college student, I considered the Resurrection a myth, a fairytale, or a hoax. Like many people, I thought Jesus, if He actually lived, was just another man in a long line of prophets or religious teachers.

A COLLEGE AGNOSTIC WITH FRIENDS WHO FOLLOWED JESUS

I saw myself as a scientist in my pre-medical studies. I was looking forward to medical school and a career as a physician. My college career was successful. I started on our college’s championship rugby team, consistently was on the Dean’s list, had a cool car, and was dating an amazing and beautiful woman, who just happened to be my childhood sweetheart.

Despite these successes, I wrestled with depression and some significant character flaws. I began to wonder if life was even worth living.

But I had some friends whose lives overflowed with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness – their lives seemed to be full, abundant, meaningful, and satisfying. And they all shared one thing in common – they all claimed to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

They actually believed Jesus was real. They said that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, had been a Jewish prophet who claimed to be the Christ, the Messiah, God Himself in flesh. They asserted he was prophesied in the Jewish Scriptures, but after a three-year ministry, was arrested, judged a political criminal, and crucified. They said that crucifixion was the most horrible, atrocious, dreadful, and appalling form of torture and death that the Roman Empire could administer.

THEY BELIEVED JESUS WAS PHYSICALLY RESURRECTED FROM THE DEAD

Furthermore, they believed his body was removed from the cross and, in accordance with Jewish burial custom, was wrapped in linen cloths soaked in a thick layer of expensive aromatic spices that were applied to the wrappings of cloth about the body, and after this, His body was placed in a solid rock tomb that had been reserved for a very wealthy man who donated it. Then, an extremely large stone was rolled across the entrance of the tomb.

They said a Roman guard of strictly disciplined soldiers was stationed to guard the tomb, and these soldiers affixed a Roman seal across the stone covering the tomb. This was meant to prevent any attempt at vandalizing the tomb as breaking the seal was a crime punished by death.

When Jesus died on the cross, my friends believed, it seemed that all had been lost. Death had won. His followers all ran and hid, out of sight, out of mind.

Then, their amazing story became unbelievable: three days after Jesus’ death and burial, some women went to His tomb and found the Roman seal broken, the Roman soldiers guarding the tomb gone, the massive stone covering the tomb rolled away, the body gone, and the grave cloths remaining.

Then, even more unbelievable, Jesus appeared – alive! The news was so shocking that His followers refused to believe it until they saw Him with their own eyes and touched His nail scarred hands with their own hands. He appeared to over 500. Of them in person, in various times and places during a period of 40 days, not only completely healthy, but also eating with them, talking to them, walking with them, before ascending into heaven.

JESUS’ RESURRECTION CHANGED HIS FOLLOWERS AND MY FRIENDS

My friends claimed Jesus’ death and Resurrection changed the lives of his followers so dramatically that many chose to leave home and begin to travel around the region and then to different parts of the world to share this message. As a result, Christianity quickly spread throughout the Roman Empire and literally around the world where it has continued to exert great influence down through the centuries.

Although I couldn’t accept their story of His Resurrection, I couldn’t deny that my friends’ lives were indeed attractive, abundant, and appealing. Their joy and peace were palpable and real. I wanted what they had, but I didn’t know that I could believe what they did.

So, I began to do some research and discovered that historians almost universally agree that Jesus existed and that He died by crucifixion just after the year 30 A.D. This has been determined from multiple ancient writings as well as the accounts in the New Testament of the Bible.

CAN THE BIBLE BE TRUSTED AS A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT AND DID IT PREDICT THE RESURRECTION?

I found that modern science had established that the New Testament books describing these details were all written before about 80 A.D. while many of the witnesses of these events were still alive and could have easily refuted the story if it wasn’t true.

And over 24,000 early copies of various portions of the New Testament are still in existence. Textual experts have concluded that between 98 and 99 percent of the New Testament we read today contains what was actually originally written.

I was shocked to learn that the Old Testament of the Bible contained over 300 prophecies about the future Messiah. When one combines the New Testament and other ancient accounts of Jesus and the Resurrection along with all of the ancient prophecies predicting Jesus’ birth, life, trial, crucifixion, and Resurrection, there are more than 66,000 early manuscripts, orders of magnitude more than any other ancient text. There are very minor variations in the manuscripts, but not one invalidates the reliability of the Resurrection accounts.

I found it very interesting that many of these prophecies included specific details that Jesus and His followers could not control.

For example, Psalm 22, written at least 600 years before Christ, prophesized Jesus’ death by crucifixion. The book of Isaiah, written about 700 years before Jesus, lays out specific details about Jesus and the meaning of His Resurrection.

Jesus Himself claimed that His life, death, and Resurrection were a fulfillment of these prophecies. His prophecy that He would die from crucifixion is very significant as He could not control that.

Jesus claimed His death by crucifixion and His Resurrection on the third day would be a “sign” that validated who He was, what He taught, and what He would accomplish by His death and Resurrection.

WHAT PROOFS, IF ANY, ARE THERE THAT JESUS’ WAS ACTUALLY RESURRECTED?

But, I had to ask myself, could the Resurrection actually have happened?

Here are some facts I had to consider:

Fact #1: Broken Roman Seal

The consequences for breaking the seal that stood for the power and authority of the Roman Empire were extremely severe. A person or persons who did this were hunted down and immediately executed by being crucified upside down. Jesus’ followers were not brave or courageous enough to do this. Instead, they all displayed signs of cowardice by hiding themselves after his death. One of them, Peter, went out and denied Christ three times.

This leaves the question, “Who broke the seal?”

Fact #2: Empty Tomb

The disciples of Christ did not initially go off to other regions or countries to declare that Christ was raised from the dead. Originally, they claimed this in the city of Jerusalem where Jesus died and was buried. If they were lying, it would be evident to everyone.

The claim of Jesus’ Resurrection could not have been made in Jerusalem for a single hour if the emptiness of the tomb was not an established fact. Both ancient Jewish and Roman sources acknowledge that Jesus’ tomb was empty. This admission, coming from hostile sources, is the strongest kind of historical evidence.

This leaves the question, “Where’s the body?”

Fact #3: Large Stone Moved

The first thing that impressed the witnesses who came to the empty tomb was that the massive stone that had been lodged in front of the doorway had been moved. All the Gospel writers mention it.

They describe its position as having been rolled up a slope away not just from the entrance of the tomb, but from the entire massive crypt. It was in such a position that it looked as if it had been picked up and carried away. This could not have happened unnoticed by the soldiers.

This leaves the question, “Who moved the stone?”

Fact #4: Roman Guard Goes AWOL

Speaking of the Roman guards – they all fled – they abandoned their post. How can this be explained? Roman guards who abandoned their post were summarily condemned to death – most commonly by being stripped of their clothes and then burned alive in a fire started with their own uniforms.

If it was not apparent which soldier had failed in his duty, then lots were drawn to see which soldier would be executed. Certainly, the entire unit would not have fallen asleep or abandoned their assignment with that kind of threat over their heads. In fact, fear of this punishment produced flawless attention to duty, especially in the night watches.

This leaves the question, “What happened to the soldiers standing guard over the tomb?”

Fact #5: Graveclothes Tell a Tale

The tomb was not totally empty – because of an amazing phenomenon. The witnesses found where the body of Jesus had lain, and there were the grave clothes, the strips of linen, lying there – like the empty cocoon of a caterpillar.

And the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, was not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

This would have stunned those Jews who saw this because in Jewish tradition, if a master got up from a table, folded his napkin and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because the folded napkin meant, “I’m coming back!”

In addition, the spices that soaked the grave clothes and likely weighed nearly a hundred pounds had immense value. Anyone removing the body for profit or mischief would have taken the burial cloths away and separated out the valuable mixture for sale.

This leaves the question, “Why did the empty grave clothes remain?”

Fact #6: Jesus’ Appearances Confirmed

One of the earliest records of Jesus’ appearing after the Resurrection is by a Jewish leader named Saul who actively persecuted and executed many Christians. He wrote that the Resurrected Jesus had been seen by more than 500 people at one time and that the majority of those people were still alive when he wrote this and could be questioned. Saul later wrote, in effect, “If you do not believe me, you can ask them.”

Such a statement in a letter written within 30 years of the event is almost as strong evidence as one could hope to get for something that happened nearly two thousand years ago.

Jesus’ appearances were mostly to his followers. Yet none of them believed that Jesus would rise from the dead before He actually did rise from the dead. All of them knew Him before His death, so they knew He was the same Jesus who died on the cross.

Let’s take the more than 500 witnesses who saw Jesus alive after His death and burial and place them in a courtroom. Do you realize that if each of those 500 people were to testify for only ten minutes, including cross-examination, you would have over 80 hours of firsthand testimony? It would be the largest and most lopsided trial in history.

By the way, this Saul, who despised Jesus and murdered His followers had a life-shattering experience when the Resurrected Jesus actually appeared to him. He later became the apostle Paul, one of the greatest witnesses of the truth of the Resurrection.

This leaves the question, “How do you explain away so many witnesses?”

WHAT ARE THE THEORIES THAT CLAIM JESUS WAS NOT RESURRECTED?

Despite all of these facts, throughout the centuries, many have attempted to disprove or explain away the historical facts of the Resurrection of Jesus.

Theory #1) Some skeptics propose that the body was stolen by the followers of Jesus.

That’s crazy. The depression and cowardice of His followers provide a hard-hitting argument against their suddenly becoming so brave and daring as to face a detachment of Roman soldiers at the tomb and steal the body. They were in no mood to attempt anything like that, and the soldiers would have killed anyone who tried.

Theory #2) Well, say other doubters, maybe the eyewitnesses went to the wrong tomb.

That’s equally nutty. If the resurrection claim was because of a geographical mistake, the Jewish and Roman authorities would have lost no time in producing the body from the proper tomb, thus effectively quenching for all time any rumor of Resurrection.

Theory #3) Another attempted explanation by cynics claims that the appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection were either illusions or hallucinations.

This theory makes no sense at all. Once again, if Jesus was still in a tomb, his actual body would have been produced.

Theory #4) Another hypothesis among nonbelievers is the swoon theory which says that Jesus didn’t die; He merely fainted from exhaustion and loss of blood.

In other words, everyone thought Him dead, but later He resuscitated, and the witnesses mistakenly thought it to be a Resurrection.

This is just plain silly. No historian or physician who has studied the effects of crucifixion, the most brutal of tortures and death, can believe this. It is impossible that a crucified human, flogged to within an inch of death, hung on a cross for all to see for many hours, could have given so many witnesses the impression that He was a conqueror over death and the grave and the Prince of Life.

Theory #5) Well, say the cynics, it’s possible that the Jewish or Roman authorities moved Jesus’ body to prevent Jesus’ followers from stealing the body.

Well, by now you know how to shoot down that absurdity. If the authorities had the body of Jesus in their possession or knew where it was, why, when Jesus’ followers were claiming His Resurrection in Jerusalem, didn’t officials say, “Wait! We moved the body. He didn’t rise from the grave”? They could have put Jesus’ corpse on a cart and wheeled it through the center of Jerusalem. Such an action would have destroyed Christianity – not in the cradle, but in the womb!

IT WAS BEGINNING TO MAKE SENSE TO ME

The more I studied, the more it made sense to me that the Resurrection of Jesus that my friends celebrated every Easter was actually a historical fact. To me, the evidence was overwhelming. I found one esteemed English historian and scholar who wrote, “Taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no ancient historic incident better or more variously supported than the Resurrection of Christ.”

But the most telling proof of all to me was the lives of those early Christians. I had to ask myself: What changed them? How did a small band of disempowered, cowardly Jews in an occupied and insignificant territory of ancient Rome accomplish this unequaled act? What happened so many years ago that reframed all human history?

Had there been any visible benefits accrued to them from their efforts – prestige, wealth, increased social status or material benefits – I might logically attempt to account for their actions – for their wholehearted and total allegiance to this “risen Jesus.”

Yet, as a reward for their efforts, those early Christians were beaten, stoned to death, killed by the sword, thrown to the lions or bears, sawed in two, burned to death, and tortured and crucified. Every conceivable method was used to stop them from talking.

They knew that their lives would have been spared if they simply recanted any claim of a Resurrection. But they did not. They went to their grave rather than say that the Resurrection was untrue. Every single one of them laying down their life is the ultimate proof of their complete confidence in the truth of their message.

I also realized that without a physical Resurrection, two thousand years of history are left begging for explanation, like a movie missing a key scene. No other event in all of recorded history has reached so far across national, ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, political, and geographic borders. No other event has separated history in two – B.C., before Christ, and A.D., after His death.

THREE FINAL ARGUMENTS I FOUND COMPELLING

Let me share three final arguments that were for me compelling evidence for the Resurrection and what Jesus claimed about Himself.

1) First, of course, is the empty tomb. Every other religious leader or prophet in human history died and was buried. You can go to the tomb of many. Yet, the tomb of Jesus is empty. That’s one vital difference between Jesus of Nazareth and any and all other great religious leaders who ever walked the earth.

2) The second is that He claimed to be God and that His Resurrection from the dead would prove that.

I was bowled over by the writing of an Oxford professor and atheist, C. S. Lewis. After becoming a follower of Jesus, he wrote, “I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

3) Thirdly, and this was astonishing to me, Jesus claimed His death was a sacrifice “for the sins of the world.” John 3:16 in the New Testament tells us, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

JESUS DIED AND WAS RESURRECTED FOR ME AND FOR YOU

Jesus claimed that He died for all of my wrongs and yours. Jesus claimed in John 10:10 that he came that we might have life and have it to the full – that it would be rich and meaningful.

For two thousand years countless people claimed that a Resurrected Jesus changed their lives. My friends claimed that, and I could see what He was doing in their lives.

Even more, I knew for a fact that my life was empty. That I needed a change.

So, as a young college student almost fifty years ago, when I was confronted with the overwhelming evidence for Christ’s claims and His Resurrection, I had to ask the logical question: “What difference does all this evidence make to me? What difference does it make whether or not I believe Jesus rose again and died on the cross for my sins?”

For me, the answer was put best by something Jesus said to another man who doubted – Thomas. Jesus told Thomas in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Jesus also made another amazing claim. He told His followers that in the future, we too will have resurrected bodies like His, bodies that would never deteriorate, age, or perish. We will have a new life, eternal life, without suffering, tears, pain, or death in the presence of a loving God forever.

On the basis of all the evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection, and considering the fact that Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and an eternal relationship with God, along with peace which surpasses all understanding, joy not dependent upon circumstances, mercy in our times of greatest need, and assurance of His presence at all times, who would be so foolhardy as to reject Him?

I MADE A DECISION THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

So, I made a decision to believe Jesus’ claims – that He is the Son of God with the power to forgive sins and give abundant life and eternal life.

His empty tomb and the lives of my friends proved it to me! I chose to become a follower of Jesus, and now, for over 45 years, I have joined my Christian brothers and sisters around the world in celebrating His Resurrection on Easter.

Because He conquered death and lives, Jesus promises that all who believe in Him will have a meaningful, abundant life, and eternal life as well.

So, how will you evaluate this overwhelming historical evidence? What is your decision about Jesus and His empty tomb? What do you think of Jesus? Who do you think that He is?

What I can tell you from my study and experience is that Jesus is alive! He lives today. And He invites you to come know Him.

HOW YOU CAN BECOME A FOLLOWER OF JESUS

In Revelation 3:20, Jesus said, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear My voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.”

You, too, can come to know Him, have a personal relationship with Him, and experience His life transforming, Resurrection power by asking Him into your life – and receiving Him into your life as your Savior and Lord.

The Bible declares in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in [Jesus] has eternal life, but whoever rejects [Jesus] will not see life.”

In 1 John 5:11-12, it says, “And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.”

The Bible states in Romans 10:9: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

You can trust Jesus right now by faith through prayer. Prayer is talking with God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. If you have never trusted Christ, you can do so right now.

I invite you to pray with me the prayer I prayed 50 years ago:

Lord Jesus, I believe in You and Your Resurrection. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to invite You in. I want to come to know You and trust You as my Lord and Savior. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be. Thank You. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

To each of you who just prayed this with me, the Bible promises this in John 1:12: “To all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.”

He’s my Father, now He’s yours. Welcome my new brothers and sister. May God bless each of you and may you have a joyous Easter.