Devin Strong, Spirit of Peace Lutheran Church

Easter Sunday celebrates the day that Jesus broke out of the grave once and for all. The resurrection is THE foundational event for approximately 2.5 billion Christians worldwide. Did it really happen?

The Romans posted guards so no one could steal the body and claim that he was raised.

Jesus broke out anyway.

I understand people’s skepticism two millennia later.

Living in the age of the scientific method, we want proof that Easter is not just a happy story. Hard evidence is hard to come by, and it may be that no evidence will ever satisfy the deep skeptic, but there are several details in the Easter story that lend credence to its validity.

For starters, in all four Gospels, the first witnesses to the resurrection are women.

As a progressive Christian, I love this detail because it reminds us that we have absolutely no business getting in the way of female preachers because they were obviously the first ones tasked with the job! But if you were trying to perpetrate a fraud in first-century Rome, the last thing that you would do is build a story around the testimony of several different ladies because back then, women were not even allowed to testify as witnesses in court. They were not considered trustworthy.

The only reason anyone with any sense would report out the experience of a bunch of “unreliable” women and call it holy scripture is if it were absolutely true.

Along those same lines, none of the men in the Easter story comes off like a superstar. In all four accounts, they are bumbling, fearful, and full of doubts. In fact, in the original ending to Mark’s Gospel, the disciples see the empty tomb, run away, and do nothing! Again, if your goal was to build a religion on a lie, you would surely tell a story that made you look heroic! But time and again throughout the Gospels, Jesus’ best friends are hot and cold running believers, not least on Easter Sunday night when they are found hiding behind locked doors, afraid for their lives. Only disciples convinced of the power and presence of Jesus would be bold enough to admit such things about themselves.

Then there are all the post-resurrection appearances. In Matthew the risen Jesus meets his friends in Galilee and commissions them. In Luke he comes through locked doors and blesses them. In John the Lord makes breakfast for his students on the beach, and in the Book of Acts, Jesus has a meal with a couple of his followers that looks an awful lot like Communion to us.

In a world before cell phones and social media, I suppose a person might get away with telling one fantastical story, especially if you could get all the eyewitnesses to repeat the same details but several different stories all testifying to the reality of the risen Jesus? It’s unlikely, unless it’s true.

Easter is about more than one miracle, even the miracle of a man who could not be held down by death, but all our faith and hope in God begins with the belief that the resurrection happened. I may not be able to convince you, and that’s okay, but this is God’s story, and I am sticking to it.