We celebrate today the fact that He is risen! The foundation of the Christian faith rests on this historical fact.

Leading apologist Gary Habermas uses a “Minimal Facts” approach to proving the resurrection of Christ by citing sources that are non-Christian as evidence of such an event occurring. It is a very compelling approach because he uses the very skeptics’ words and documentation to prove the resurrection as a historical fact.

The life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus IS one of the most assured facts in history. We celebrate today a RISEN SAVIOR. We take comfort today that Jesus holds the keys of death in His hands and that as His children, we shall never perish.

Skeptics will pose many alternate versions of the events of that historic weekend, but the facts do not allow for such illusions.

The tomb of Jesus was a well-known place for His contemporaries. All the enemies of “The Way” would have had to do was to produce the body of Jesus and that would have been the end. Paul speaks of the early creed he received regarding the burial of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, a creed most scholars date back to AD 34-35, within a few years of the actual crucifixion and death.

The Jewish Sanhedrin were openly hostile to Jesus and His followers. Yet, the Gospels record that one from their own group, Joseph of Arimathea, providing Jesus with a proper Jewish burial. This, too, could have been easily discounted, but was not.

The dead body of Jesus most assuredly was in that tomb. A tomb secured by guards (see Matthew 27:62-66) and verified by the Jewish leaders themselves when trying to create an alternate explanation (Matthew 28:11-15).

Having women be the first to report the empty tomb (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-11; John 20:1-3) would be a horrible way to prove a fact in those days. A woman’s testimony was worthless in those days. For all of the Gospel writers to mention women first discovering the empty tomb only strengthens the case as pure fact.

We also must remember, the Gospel writers—nor any of the other NT writers—were writing to create the New Testament. They were writing as historians, men given divine inspiration to remember and record the events they either witnessed directly or interviewed those who had.

Indeed, we celebrate this day our Risen Lord. We celebrate because we who are called followers of Christ have been called out of darkness to the Light of Truth that is only found in Jesus Christ, the living Son of God.

He is risen! Amen!