Happy Resurrection Day! Unless, of course, it’s all a hoax. The internet is chockablock with sites trying to destroy the Christian’s hope of ultimate victory over death, based on the bodily rising of our Lord Jesus.

Some recount the so-called resurrection myths of ancient cultures, almost all linked to the repeated “rebirth” of the year or the blossoming of nature after winter. Christians are supposed to be shaken by this and acknowledge in dismay, “I guess Jesus’ resurrection is just another myth after all.”

Anthropologist James Frazer opines, “The coincidences of the Christian with the heathen festivals are too close and too numerous to be accidental.”

Really? Here’s one of his examples, this from ancient Egypt: “Osiris was…murdered by his brother Set, who chopped up Osiris’s body and scattered his remains across Egypt. Isis reassembled Osiris’s body, anointed it with oil and performed the elaborate rites of embalming, which resurrected Osiris to eternal life as the god of the underworld.”

Forgive me if I don’t see the resemblance! And the others are just as far-fetched. It seems these so-called scholars have never heard of the DOCUMENTARY evidence for Jesus. Hebrew scholar Alfred Edersheim found 456 verses in the Hebrew Bible that were fulfilled when Jesus came into the world, lived, died, and rose again.

These aren’t the fuzzy approximations of Nostradamus, Jeanne Dixon, or Edgar Cayce. They’re hard data: the town where He would be born, His family lineage, the miracles He would perform, His betrayal by a friend, how much they would pay the traitor, that His hands and feet would be pierced, that they would gamble over His seamless outer garment but tear His inner clothes in pieces, that He would die with criminals but be buried like a rich man—and on and on.

Oh, and that He would rise from the dead! Yes, the carpenter from Nazareth would fulfill over 300 prophetic details pre-recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, including His bodily resurrection. (Ps 16:10)

But we don’t only have documentary evidence. There’s plenty of EYE-WITNESS evidence, too. These witnesses, hundreds of them, often suffered horrible deaths because they wouldn’t deny what they knew to be true. Jesus was alive! And it wasn’t a ghost or hallucination. Several of them ate a meal with Him!

The clincher to the list of witnesses is the CRITICAL evidence of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, chief persecutor of the Church who, after his shocking rendezvous with the risen Jesus, became its most passionate promoter. Christ’s resurrection is one of ancient history’s most carefully scrutinized and best-attested events.

But perhaps the clearest evidence is TESTIMONIAL. If you believe the convincing evidence—transferring your trust to the Lord Jesus as the promised Redeemer from sin and Conqueror of death—you BECOME evidence of His life-changing power. As my brothers in prison say, “Jesus changed me so radically, even I don’t recognize myself!”

This Resurrection Sunday, rejoice in this certainty: “Christ IS risen from the dead.” (1 Cor 15:20) And here’s the personal part for those who receive Him: “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when WE were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” (Eph 2:4-5)

Don’t miss out on your own Resurrection Day!

Jabe Nicholson of Starkville likes flowery gardens but not flowery writing. Go figure. Reach him at: [email protected] or uplook.tv