Unless we accept what the Scriptures teach about the resurrection, the entire Christian message virtually disintegrates. The whole preaching thrust of the apostolic age was based upon the fact that one quiet morning in an obscure garden man had vanquished his most feared enemy, the vaunted angel of death. Satan had defeated the first Adam in a garden ages before, and with his victory there commenced the reign of sin and death over mankind. But now in God's appointed time and plan Satan met the last Adam in still another garden, and death "was swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:54).

Our Lord's Resurrection is far more than just a proposition. It is the basic pillar upon which rests the hope of all Christians. Saint Paul wrote, "And if Christ be not raised your faith is in vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17).
Josh McDowell sums it up perfectly when he says, "I have come to the conclusion that [either] the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history" (p.185). Jesus Christ has three basic credentials: (1) The impact of his life upon history; (2) Fulfilled prophecy in his life, and (3) His resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and Christianity stand or fall together.

Here is the resurrection account in Matthew's Gospel (Ch. 28:1-11; RSV):

'Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and say upon it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said.

Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I have told you." So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Hail!" And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me." While they were going, behold, some of the guards went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place.'

Here are the facts as they stand:

Confucius' tomb. . . . . . . . . . . .	occupied with his body
Buddha's tomb. . . . . . . . . . . . .	occupied with his body
Mohammed's tomb. . . . . . . . . .	occupied with his body
Jesus' tomb. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	is EMPTY!

The evidence speaks for itself - It says very clearly: Christ is risen! All but four of the world major religions are based on mere philosophical propositions. Of the four that are based on personalities rather than on a philosophical system, only Christianity claims an empty tomb for its founder. Abraham, the founder of Judaism, died about 1900 B.C., but no resurrection was ever claimed for him.

"The original accounts of Buddha never ascribe to him any such thing as a resurrection; in fact in the earliest accounts of his death, namely, the Mahaparinbbana Sutta, we read that when Buddha died it was with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains behind'" (Smith, 1965, p.385).

Mohammed died June 8, 632 A.D., at the age of sixty-one, at Medina, where his tomb is annually visited by thousands of devout Mohammedans (Muslims). All the millions of Jews, Buddhists, and Mohammedans (Muslims) agree that their "founders have never come up out of the dust of the earth in resurrection" (ibid). The Random House Encyclopedia states that Confucius died in 479 B.C. in China (no resurrection is claimed).

As one can see, faith in the resurrection is the very keystone, central tenet and arch of the Christian faith. When you compare Jesus to Buddha, or to Confucius, or to Zoroaster, or to Mohammed, or to Ghandi, or to Aristotle, or to Plato, or to Socrates; it is the difference between time (men) and infinity (God-man). The Christian Faith is not fueled by fossils nor by the sages of science, rather it is fueled by a living Savior. The babe from Bethlehem, who became the Christ on Calvary, has now become the Lord of the empty tomb.

The fact of the Resurrection entered intimately into the life of the early Christians; this fact appears on theirs tombs, and in the drawings found on the walls of the catacombs; The fact entered deeply into the hymnology of the Early (Catholic) Church; The fact of the Resurrection become one of the great apologetic themes in the writings of the first four centuries; it was the constant focal point of their preaching. And it entered at once into the great Creeds of the Catholic Church. Christ himself pointed his whole ministry and preaching to the future event of his resurrection. When asked for a sign (to qualify him) he spoke of his resurrection as the single and sufficient credential.

Christianity does not hold the resurrection to be one among many tenets of belief. Without faith in resurrection there would be no Christianity at all. The Christian church would have never begun; the Jesus movement would have fizzled out like a damp squid with his execution. "Christianity is a historical religion. It claims that God has taken the risk of involving himself in human history, and the facts are there for you to examine with the utmost rigor. They will stand any amount of critical investigation" (Green p.61).

Below, I list Jesus' claims regarding his resurrection:

John 2:18-22-The Jews therefore answered and said to him, What sign do you show to us, seeing that you do these things? Jesus answered and said to them, 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'
The resurrection was undoubtedly Jesus' central claim!  That Jesus said he was going up to Jerusalem to die is not so remarkable, though all the details he gave about his death, weeks and months before he died, are together a prophetic phenomenon. But when he said that he himself would rise again from the dead, the third day after he was crucified, he said something only a fool would dare say, if he expected longer the devotion of any disciples, unless. . . he was sure he was going to rise. "No founder of any world religion known to men ever dared say a thing like that!" (Smith p.10-11).

"Taking the Gospel record as faithful history there can be no doubt that Christ himself anticipated his death and resurrection, and plainly declared it to his disciples. The Gospel writers are quite frank to admit that such predictions really did not penetrate their minds till the resurrection was a fact (Jn. 20:9). But the evidence is there from the mouth of our Lord that he would come back from the dead after three days. He told them that he would be put to death violently, through the cause of hatred, and would rise on the third day. All this came to pass" (Ramm p.191).

The scriptures say in Sirach 39:1-2; "On the other hand he who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High will seek out all the wisdom of the ancients, and will be concerned with prophecies; he will preserve the discourse of notable men."

It would be wise to listen to the testimony of these notable men known as the Early Church Fathers, such as Ignatius of Antioch (50-115 AD.)

Ignatius, a bishop, was a native of Syria and a disciple of Saint John. History records that he was thrown to the wild beasts in the Roman Coliseum. He writes in his letters during his journey to martyrdom, "He was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate. He really, and not merely in appearance, was crucified, and died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He also rose again in three days. . . . "

Irenaeus, in 140-202 AD., writes in his apologetical treatise against Heresies, "For since the Lord went away into the midst of the shadow of death where the souls of the dead were, and afterwards arose in the body, and after the resurrection was taken up, it is clear that the souls of his disciples, in account of which the Lord underwent these things, will go away into the place allotted to them by God."

Tertullian (160-220 AD.) of Carthage, North Africa was a lawyer who converted to Christianity and used his legal prowess for the defense of the Faith. He writes, "We believe that he suffered and that in accord with the scriptures, he died and was buried; and that he was raised again by the Father to resume his place in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father."

A joint effort of the Fathers of the Council (Creed of Nicaea 325 AD.) - "Through whom all things were made, both those in heaven and on earth; who for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, took flesh, and was made man, he suffered, died and was buried, on the third day he rose, ascended into heaven, and will come to judge the living and the dead."

Alexander (312-328 AD) Bishop of Alexandria was one of the key figures at the Council of Nicaea. The following letter is written to all Non-Egyptian Bishops (324 AD): "After this, we acknowledge the resurrection of the dead, of which Jesus Christ our Lord became the firstling; who bore a body not in appearance but in truth, derived from Mary the Mother of God."

Polycarp (about 110 AD.) Bishop of Smyrna-In his Epistle to the Philippians; "He says that God raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and gave him glory and a throne on his right hand, to whom were subjected all things in heaven and on earth. The risen Jesus is coming as Judge of quick and dead."

Here is the testimony of a Non-Christian Historian: Josephus, a Jewish historian, writing at the end of the first century A.D. has this fascinating passage in Antiquities, 18.3.3: "Now their was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men that receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him many Jews and also many Greeks. This man was the Christ. And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, upon his impeachment by the principal man among us, those who had loved from the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive on the third day, the divine Prophets having spoken these and thousand of wonderful things about him'. And even now, the race of Christians, so named from him, has not died out."

The fact that the greatest Jewish historian would make such admissions is remarkable, since we have to remember that he was not concerned with being sympathetic to Christians, far from it. He was a Jewish slave, captured by the Roman Empire, and he was a historian for the Romans. This story about Jesus would have not pleased the Roman's one bit. Josephus would not have included this story if it were not true, since he had nothing to gain by narrating this story.

Following is the testimony of Simon Greenleaf who, while still Professor of Law at Harvard, wrote a classic work on the resurrection. The author examines the merit of the testimony of the Apostles to the resurrection of Christ. The following is a sampling of the brilliant and critical mind of this jurist's observation; "The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling errors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of the public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teachings of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men were against them. The fashion of this world was against them.

Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonment, torments and cruel deaths. Yet this faith did they zealously propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only continued their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely any example of this type of heroic constancy, patience and unblemishing courage.

They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their intentions with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had Jesus not actually have risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error.

To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to counter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure the pangs of inward and conscious guilt, with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come. Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature.

Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others or our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations, and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to be men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication", (Greenleaf p.28-30).

In a book which has become a best seller, "Who Moved the Stone?", Frank Morrison, a lawyer, tells us how he had been brought up in a rationalistic environment, and had come to the opinion that the account of the resurrection was nothing but a fairy tale happy ending which spoiled the matchless story of Jesus. Therefore, he planned to write an account of the last tragic days of Jesus, allowing the full horror of the crime and the full heroism of Jesus to shine through. He would, of course, omit any suspicion of the miraculous, and would utterly discount the resurrection. But when it came to study the facts with care, he had to change his mind, and he wrote his book on the other side. His first chapter is significantly called, 'The Book that Refused to Be Written' and the rest of his volume consists of one of the shrewdest and most attractively written assessments I have read. . ." (McDowell p.197).

Dr Peter Kreeft and Fr. Taceli state the strategy of the Argument for the Resurrection by noting Five Possible Theories: 'We believe Christ resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well documented event in ancient history. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard, empirical data, which no one denies: the existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today. The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?

There are five possible theories: (1) Christianity; (2) hallucination; (3) myth; (4) conspiracy; (5) swoon.

1) Christianity	Jesus died	Jesus rose
2) Swoon	He didn't die	Jesus was alive in the tomb (Kreeft & Taceli p.181-2)
3) Conspiracy	Jesus died	Jesus didn't rise, the apostles were deceivers
4) Hallucination	Jesus died	Jesus didn't rise, the apostles were deceived
5) Myth	Jesus died	Jesus didn't rise, the apostles were myth-makers

I shall take the four non-believing theories in the following : from the simplest, least popular and most easily refuted to the most confusing, most popular and most difficult to refute: first swoon, then conspiracy, then hallucination and finally myth. I will share Kreeft & Taceli's logic in order to explain the rational basis for the resurrection. Their logic is as follows:

Refutation of the Swoon Theory: Nine Arguments
1) Jesus could not have survived the crucifixion. Roman procedures were very careful to eliminate that possibility, Roman law even laid the death penalty on any soldier who let a capital prisoner escape in any way, including bungling a crucifixion.

2) The fact that the Roman soldier did not break Jesus' legs, as he did to the other two crucified criminals (John 19:31-33), means that the soldiers were sure Jesus was dead. Breaking the legs hastened the death so that the corpse could be taken down before the Sabbath (v.31).

3) John, an eyewitness, certified that he saw water and blood come from Jesus' pierced heart (John 19:34-35). This shows that our Lord's lungs had collapsed and he had died of asphyxiation. Any medical expert can vouch for this.

4) The body was totally encased in winding sheets and entombed (John 19:38-42).

5) The post-resurrection appearances convinced the apostles and disciples that Jesus was gloriously alive (John 20:19-29). It is psychologically impossible for the apostles to have been so transformed and confident if Jesus had merely struggled out of a swoon, badly in need of a doctor. A half-dead, staggering sick man who has just had a narrow escape, is not worshipped fearlessly as the divine Lord and conqueror of death.

6) How were the Roman guards at the tomb overpowered by a swooning corpse? Or by unarmed apostles? And if the apostles did it, they knowingly lied when they wrote the Gospels, and we are involved in a conspiracy theory (which I will refute shortly).

7) How could a swooning half-dead man have moved the great stone at the door of the tomb?  Who moved the stone if not an angel?  Neither the Jews nor the Romans would move it, for it was in both their interest to keep the tomb sealed; the Jews had the stone put their in the first place, and the Roman guards would be killed if they let the body 'escape.'

fThe story that the Jewish authorities spread, that the guards fell asleep and the disciples stole the body (Mt 28:11-15), is unbelievable. Roman guards would not fall asleep on a job like this one; if they did, they would lose their life. And even if they did fall asleep, the crowd and the effort and the noise it would have taken to move an enormous boulder would have awakened them. Furthermore, we are again into the conspiracy theory (see next section).

8) If Jesus awoke from a swoon, where did he go? Think this through: you have a living body to deal with, not a dead one. Why did it disappear? There is absolutely no data, not even false, fantastic, imagined data, about Jesus' life after his crucifixion, in any sources, friend or foe, at any time, early or late. The silence is deafening.

9) Most simply, the swoon theory turns into the conspiracy theory or the hallucination theory, for the disciples testified that Jesus did not swoon but really died and rose. It may seem that these arguments have violated our initial principle about not presupposing the truth of the Gospel text. But the swoon theory does not challenge the truth in the texts which we refer to as data; it uses them and explains them (by swoon rather than resurrection). Thus we use them too.  We can argue from our opponent's own premises. (ibid p.183).

Refutation of the Conspiracy Theory: Seven Arguments
1) Why couldn't the disciples have made up the whole story?  This is unthinkable as this would mean the apostles were either deceived or deceivers. Either supposition is difficult, for it is not possible to imagine that a man has risen from the dead.  While Jesus was with them, he could (and did) empower them; but afterwards, if he did not appear to them, who empowered them? The hypothesis that the Apostles were lying is quite absurd.  Follow it out to the end, and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus' death and conspiring to say that he had risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is (alone) susceptible to deceit, to change, to bribery, to promises. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonments, tortures, and death, and they would all have been lost.

Follow that out. The historical fact to this argument is that no one, weak or strong, saint or sinner, Christian or heretic, ever confessed, freely or under pressure, bribe or even torture, that the whole story of the resurrection was a fake, a lie, or a deliberate deception.  Even when people broke under torture, denied Christ and worshipped Caesar to spare their lives, they never denied the Resurrection. It was for this very reason that they had become Christians.

2) If they made up the story, these fisherman were the most creative, clever, intelligent charlatans in history, far surpassing Shakespeare, et al.  Tall tales are never that elaborate, that convincing, that life changing, and that enduring.

3) The Apostles' character argues strongly against such a conspiracy on the part of all of them, with no dissenters. They were simple, honest, common peasants, not conniving liars (they weren't lawyers - with apologies to any honest attorney). Their sincerity is proved by their words and deeds. They preached a resurrected Christ and they lived a resurrected Christ.  They willingly died for their "conspiracy." Nothing proves sincerity like martyrdom. The change of their lives from fear to faith, despair to confidence, confusion to certitude, runaway cowardice to steadfast boldness under threat of persecution, not only proves their sincerity but testifies to some powerful cause of it. Can a lie cause such a transformation? Use your imagination and sense of perspective here. Imagine twelve poor, fearful, uneducated, peasants changing the hard-nosed Roman world with a lie.

4) There could be no possible motive for such a lie. Lies are always told for some selfish advantage. What advantage did the apostles derive from their lie? They were hated, scorned, persecuted, excommunicated (from Judaism), imprisoned, tortured, exiled, crucified, boiled alive, beheaded, and fed to the lions - hardly a catalog of benefits!

5) If the resurrection was a lie, the Jews would have produced the corpse and nipped this feared superstition in the bud. All they had to do was go to the tomb and get the body. The Roman soldiers and their leaders were on the Jews' side, not on the side of the Christians.

6) The Apostles could have not have gotten away with proclaiming the resurrection in Jerusalem; same time, same place, full of eyewitnesses, if it had been a lie. "The Gospels were written in such a temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events" (Craig p.60).

7) "If there had been a conspiracy, it would certainly have been unearthed by the disciple's adversaries, who had both the interest and the power to expose a fraud. Common experience shows that such intrigues are inevitably exposed" (Ibid).  In conclusion, if the resurrection was a concocted, conspired lie, it violates all known historical and psychological laws of lying (ibid p.184).

Refutation of the Hallucination Theory: Ten Arguments
Refutation: If you thought you saw a (recently crucified) dead man walking and talking, wouldn't you think it likely that you were hallucinating rather than that you were seeing correctly? Wouldn't it seem more likely that the disciples had been hallucinating?

1) There were too many witnesses. Hallucinations are private, individual,and subjective. He appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the Apostles, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to the fishermen on the shore, and to more than five hundred people at once (1Cor.15:3-8). Saint Paul says in this passage (v.6) that most of the five hundred people are still alive, inviting any reader (or hearer) to check the truth of the story by questioning the eyewitnesses. He could never have done this and gotten away with it, given the power, resources and numbers of his enemies, if it were not true.

2) The witnesses were qualified. They were simple, honest, moral people who had firsthand knowledge of the facts.

3) The five hundred people saw Christ together, at the same time and place. This is even more remarkable than five hundred private 'hallucinations' at different times and places of the same Jesus.

4) Hallucinations usually happen only once, except to the insane. This one returned many times, to ordinary people (Jn 20:19-21:14; Acts 1:3).

5) Hallucinations usually last a few seconds or minutes; rarely hours. This one hung around for forty days (Acts 1:3).

6) Hallucinations come from within, from what we already know, at least unconsciously. This one said and did surprising and unexpected things (Acts 1:4,9), like a real person and unlike a dream.

7) Initially, even the Apostles thought he was a ghost, he had to eat something to prove he was not (Lk 24: 36-43).

8) Hallucinations do not eat. The resurrected Christ did, on at least two occasions (Lk 24:42-43; Jn 21:1-14).

9) The disciples touched him (Mt 28:9; Lk 24:39; Jn 20:27).

10) They also spoke with him, and he spoke back. Figments of your imagination do not hold profound, extended conversations with you, unless you have the kind of mental disorder that isolates you. Unbelievers try to dismiss the resurrection not by meeting the arguments head on, but by simply dismissing miracles, thus throwing aside the whole issue of whether miracles are possible. The second form of counterattack which is more popular is to dismiss the Gospels as myth; neither literally true nor literally false, but spiritually or symbolically true. This is the standard line of liberal theology departments in colleges, universities and seminaries throughout the country (ibid p.186).

Refutation of the Myth Theory: Six Arguments
1) The styles of the Gospels is radically and clearly different from the styles of all other myths. There are no overblown, spectacular or childishly exaggerated events.

2) The second problem is that there is not enough time for a myth to develop. Most demythologizers date the writing of the Gospels to the late second century. John Muller puts the anti-myth argument this way: "One cannot imagine how such a series of legends could arise in an historical age, obtain universal respect, and supplant the historical recollection of the true character (Jesus). . . if eyewitnesses were still at hand who could be questioned respecting the truth of the recorded marvels. Hence, legendary fiction, as it likes not the clear present time but prefers the mysterious gloom of gray antiquity, is wont to seek a remoteness of age, along with that of space, and to remove its boldest and most rare and wonderful creations into a very remote and unknown land." Muller challenged his nineteenth century contemporaries to produce a single example anywhere in history of a great myth of legend arising around a historical figure and being generally believed within thirty years after the figure's deth. The silence to his question is deafening.

3) The myth theory has two layers. The first layer is the historical Jesus, who was not divine, did not claim divinity, performed no miracles, and did not rise from the dead. The second layer is the Gospels as we have them, with a Jesus who claimed to be divine, performed miracles and rose from the dead. The problem with this theory is that there is not the slightest bit of evidence whatever, for the first layer. The first layer is made entirely of air, hot air at that. The Gospels are a miraculous story, and we have no other story handed down to us other than that contained in the Gospels. The letters of early Christian writers; Barnabas, Clement, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Ignatius and Justin speak of the resurrection.  Most of these men were descendants of the Apostles.

4) The first witnesses to the resurrection were women. In first century Judaism, women had a low social status and no legal right to serve as witnesses. If the empty tomb were an invented legend, its' inventors surely would not have had it discovered by women whose testimony was considered worthless.

5) The New Testament could not be myth misinterpreted and confused with the fact because it specifically distinguishes the two and repudiates the mythic interpretation (2 Pet 1:16). This verse explicitly says it is not myth, if it is myth, it is a deliberate lie rather than myth.

6) The final mode foisted by the myth-makers is to 'poison the well.'  They simply attack the historicity and credibility of the New Testament (ibid. p.189). Purtill summarizes the case this way: "Many events which are regarded as firmly established historically have:

(a)	far less documentary evidence than many biblical events.
(b)	the documents on which historians rely for much secular history are written much longer after the event than many records of biblical events.
(c)	Furthermore, we have many more copies of biblical narratives than of secular histories, and
(d)	the surviving copies are much earlier than those on which are evidence for secular history is based. If the biblical narratives did not contain accounts of miraculous events. . . biblical history would probably be regarded as much more firmly established than most of the history of, say, classical Greece and Rome" (Thinking About Religion, pp.84-85).

Christianity does not invalidate the myth theories, it validates them, by incarnating them. It is "myth become fact," to use the title of a germane essay by C.S. Lewis (in God In The Dock).

The historical evidence is massive enough to convince the open-minded inquirer. By analogy with any other historical event, the resurrection has eminently credible evidence behind it. To disbelieve it, you must make an exception to the rules you use everywhere else in history.

Here is some food for thought - "Inscribed upon the tomb of the great architect Christopher Wren is this statement, 'If you would see the man's monument, look around.'  Well might we say this is in an infinitely greater sense of Jesus Christ, for through the centuries he has established living monuments to His power to save, miraculously transforming the lives of those who would dare to believe the incredible.  To those who come to Jesus Christ, becomes the answer to all the problems of soul and body. The results of their experience with Him become the truly unanswerable argument of essential Christianity" (Martin, p.1).

Pope John Paul II uttered these words at the beginning of his pontificate "Be not afraid."  In his book "Crossing the Threshold of Hope", he says "People and nations of the world need to hear these words. Their conscience needs to grow in the certainty that someone exists who holds in his hands the destiny of this passing world; someone who holds the keys to death and to the netherworld (cf Rev. 1:18); someone who is the Alpha and Omega of human history (cf. Rev. 22:13) - be it the individual or collective history."

And this someone is love (cf Rev 1 Jn 4:8,16) - love that became a man, love crucified and risen. Love unceasingly present among men. It is Eucharistic love. It is the infinite source of communion. He alone can give the ultimate assurance when he says, "Be not afraid." If you have experienced (or wish to experience) the love of the resurrected Christ in your heart and soul, then you are urged to become involved in the transformation of the world, to be not afraid, to witness about HIM who holds all human history in the palm of his hand. The palm of his hand, that is a good place to be."

Apart from the resurrection, Christianity makes absolutely no sense. The martyrs, smelling the grave from afar as a lover smells roses; the apostles such as Paul, longing to become like a crucified Palestinian peasant; the virgins, throwing away a life of human love and family; the Desert Fathers, living in caves and eating bugs and water; the saints who preferred to be roasted on griddles or to be starved at Auschwitz in place of some stranger - all these would be foaming lunatics but for one central reality that unlocks all these mysterious actions like a master key: the resurrection of the dead "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Corinthians 15:19-20). Paul saw the Risen Christ. Everything he did makes sense only in light of that overwhelming reality. Likewise, our lives only make sense in light of the Resurrection.

Live in that light because the Resurrection of Christ is not just an Easter-time phenomena to be celebrated in song and service, but the resurrection is literally the dawn of every new day of our lives and of our witness. Because Christ lives, the scripture says, WE WILL LIVE ALSO!  As for you, the reader of my 'apologia' on the resurrection, if I never meet you face to face, regardless of whether you believe me or not, God willing, I'll see you at the RESURRECTION!

In the service of the Master,
Jesse Romero

__Bibliography______________________________________________________________

Martin, Walter. Essential Christianity. California: Regal Books, 1980.
McDowell, Josh. Evidence that demands a Verdict. Arrowhead Springs: Campus Crusade for Christ, 1975.
Smith, Wilbur. Therefore Stand-Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1965.
Smith, Wilbur. A Great Certainty in this hour of World Crisis. Wheaton: Van Kampen Press, 1951.
Ramm, Bernard. Protestant Christian Evidences. Chicago: Moody Press, 1957.
Greenleaf, Simon. Testimony of the Evangelists, Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1965.
Green, Michael. Man Alive. Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1968.
Craig, William. Knowing the Truth about the Resurrection. Michigan: Servant Publications, 1988.
Kreeft, Peter & Taceli, Ronald. Handbook of Christian Apologetics Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1994.



All essay text intellectual copyright property of Jesse Romero and JesseRomero.com