3.1 Was Jesus' Resurrection Fake News?

Over 50 years ago, on July 20th, 1969, something incredible happened. Mankind took one giant leap into the unknown. Neil Armstrong and his merry men one of whom was Irish had gone where no man had gone before, the moon or did they? Although confirmed by video footage and actual testimony from The Astronauts, the moon landing is disputed by some. They go to great lengths attempting to show that the video footage you can look up on YouTube is fake. They believe that the whole thing was staged in a studio made to look and feel like the moon. Now, personally, I'm a moon landing believer but isn't it interesting that so many of the world's significant events get accused of being fake news. The most significant event in the history of the Christian faith is the resurrection: Jesus rising from the dead. Now like the moon landing, it has been widely disbelieved but as the bible writer and apostle Paul puts it, 'The resurrection is the hinge on which the Christian faith hangs.' Paul said, 'If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ must still be dead. And if he is still dead then all our preaching is useless and your trust in God is empty, worthless, hopeless' (1 Cor 15:14). What a statement to make but this is the reality, either Jesus is who he said he is, the Son of God who would defeat death by rising again or he's the greatest fake news story of all time. On one level, I'm well aware of how wonderfully crazy this thing is. People coming back to life again is a little unexpected. Over the last 2000 years, some people have suggested that the disciples stole the body of Jesus and hid it elsewhere claiming fake news and others say that the Roman authorities may have gotten rid of the body but none of these suggestions has ever proven to be true. The fact is the authorities never produced the dead body of Jesus and the idea that the disciples lived on talking about a fake resurrection while being persecuted, tortured, and killed for this lie is a little hard to believe. What I find most interesting about the story of Jesus after the resurrection is what he did. Like, he made breakfast for the disciples, he ate with them so he wasn't some kind of ghost or a zombie but they didn't quite recognize him at first because this new body was version 2.0. But he still had the scars in his hands and his feet to identify him. Thomas a disciple who was really struggling to believe the events of the first Easter Sunday had the bizarre opportunity of putting his finger in the gap in Jesus' hand where the nail had been and when he did his instant reply was one of faith. He said, 'My Lord and my God!' (John 20:28). You see, this was different than simply just coming back to life as in Jesus had already brought people back to life in the Gospels. Take Lazarus for example. He was dead and buried in a cave. He was wrapped like a mummy and yet Jesus comes along after 3 days and reversed the effect of death. Lazarus was restored to his former self but for Jesus, he had a new body, a resurrected body where death and decay would be no more. And the resurrection of Jesus was no secret. he appeared to crowds. We even have historical fragments of the apostle Paul's early writings when he wrote that, 'Jesus appeared to more than 500 people at the same time, most of whom are still living though some have fallen asleep.' I think this is important because any of those first readers could have gone and asked any of those 500 people if Jesus was really truly alive again. Now, some have suggested that all 500 people hallucinated the whole thing but the chance of even 3 people sharing the same hallucination is as likely as all 3 winning the national lottery 5 times in a row. Now, I can't prove the resurrection to you but that's not my main point. What I am saying is that the heart of the Christian message is not a fairy tale. There is historical evidence to help you make that leap of faith. It's the resurrection that tells me that Jesus is trustworthy because he did exactly what he said he would do by rising 3 days after death. And it gives meaning to one of the greatest bible verses of all time, 'for 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' (John 3:16). Jesus left death for dead and one day we can rise with him too, this is the meaning of Easter.