Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

     I recognize that the question of whether or not Jesus Christ really rose from the dead assumes a lot of other answers.  In order to have risen from the dead, Jesus had to have been a real person who actually lived and died.  He could not have been a product of legends or the mixture of various religious figures that some claim He is.  I intend to address those issues at some point on this blog, but for this morning, we will take a look at the central claim being celebrated today.  The claim is made very concisely by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 15:

"For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures..."

 This is the reason for the worldwide celebrations taking place today, articulated in a very basic collection of statements, broken down as follows:

1.  Jesus Christ died
2.  His death is related to our sins
3.  His death took place in accordance with the Scriptures
4.  He was buried
5.  He rose again
6.  His resurrection took place in accordance with the Scriptures 

     Did Jesus experience death?  No heartbeat, no breathing, death?  Did He really come back to life and leave the tomb in which he was buried empty?

     Perhaps the best piece of evidence that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead can be found in the fact that Christianity even exists today.  According to the earliest accounts, the followers of Jesus abandoned Him when He was arrested prior to His crucifixion.  Matthew 26:56 and Mark 14:50 both use the same words to describe what happened:

Matthew 26:56 "...Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled."

Mark 14:50 "Then they all forsook Him and fled."

With this being the case, what happened to turn a small group of scared men into a world-changing, life-risking bunch of missionaries?  These men would risk and, in most cases, sacrifice their lives in order to tell the world that Jesus had risen from the dead.  If not His resurrection, what was their motivation?  What turned their fear into boldness?  What turned their silence into sermons?  

     The book of Acts in the New Testament details the behavior of these men in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection.  The evidence of the radical transformation that took place in their lives is still visible today.  If Jesus were still dead, there would be no Christian church.  The people who spread the message on which Christian churches are based had already given up.  They threw in the towel, their leader was dead...until He wasn't.  Once Jesus came back to life, nothing would stop His followers from spreading that message.  He is risen!  He is risen indeed.