You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was
crucified. He is risen, He is not here. Behold the place
where they laid Him.
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The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an historical
fact. This doctrine of the Church is not merely a supernatural
truth, rather it is able to be substantiated by natural facts.
There is evidence besides the gospels. The empty tomb needs an
explanation; if the body of Christ had remained in the tomb the claim
of the resurrection would never have been made. The martyrdom of
the apostles needs an explanation; if the resurrection were a big lie
it is incredible to think that the apostles would have suffered all
manner of abuse in its defense. The consistent belief of the
Church in time and place needs an explanation; if the resurrection were
but fraud it is incredible to think all manner of people could be so
easily duped.
There is evidence of the gospels. The men who wrote the
gospels are reliable witnesses; they were contemporaries who knew what
they were writing about and who left an honest account of their
experience. Matthew and John were apostles, Mark consulted
with the apostle Peter and Luke traveled with Paul and wrote from other
sources; modern scholarship agrees with the gospel record of the Holy
Land as it was before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD; in recounting the
life of our Lord, the gospel writers also record their sins and
failings, but no man would place himself in a bad light unless he were
honest and simply recording a factual account of what happened.
And what do these gospels tell us?
Two thousand years ago, after many cruel torments, Jesus Christ was
crucified, died, and was buried. Jesus Christ truly died... like
we shall all one day truly die. His human soul separated
from His body and He ceased to live. Indeed, even the Jewish
leaders believed in His death for when they asked Pilate for permission
to seal the tomb and post a guard of soldiers, it was not to keep the
body from walking off, but to keep the disciples from walking off with
the body. These Jews feared the disciples would steal the body
and say to the people, “He has risen from the dead.” So they had
the tomb sealed and a guard of soldiers posted.
On the third day, however, Christ returned to life... never more to
die. The earth trembled and the Lord arose; the stone rolled back
and guard were terrified and lay as if dead.
Later, the Jewish leaders shrewdly paid the soldiers hush money (a
large sum), telling them, “say that the disciples came while you
were asleep and stole the body.” St. Augustine ridicules their
plot, “you summon sleeping witnesses! Shrewdness itself has fallen
asleep when it devises no better plan then to call sleeping witnesses
to testify.”
Unlike many others, we are not faking sleep but awake with the
truth. We know and profess that Jesus Christ of Nazareth truly
rose from the dead in His own body, alleluia. This is what we
celebrate on Easter Sunday and on every Sunday of the year.
Anyone who says that the Resurrection of the Christ is not an
historical fact but only some figure of speech, a dream of the
Christians to describe some spiritual experience of the early Church,
is himself dreaming, another sleeping witness whom the world has bribed
so that he not wake up and see the empty tomb and the place where they
laid Him and believe.