In the early Church, when one Christian would greet another, often he would say: “He is risen.”
         And the other would respond, “He is risen indeed!”
         The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest fact in human history. Yet throughout the centuries to our present time, skeptics have argued against the historical reliability of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well-known atheist Richard Dawkins said, “Accounts of Jesus’s resurrection and ascension are about as well-documented as Jack and the Beanstalk.”
        Dr. Sam Lamerson of Knox Theological Seminary says this: “There are so many pieces of evidence for the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that if we reject the truth of the Resurrection, I believe, we must then become total historical agnostics and reject virtually everything that we know about ancient history, because it is my belief after studying these accounts for years that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most certain event in the history of mankind; that there is no ancient historical event that is more certainly testified to both by number of witnesses and by evidence than the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
        Let’s consider some of the evidence for the resurrection of Christ. We begin with the empty tomb. Dr. Paul Maier, Western Michigan University: “Now, we often overlook the empty tomb. But I think the empty tomb is very important.  Because that is something that an ancient historian can get at.” As Dr. Habermas points out,  “Most scholars seem to think, I would say, that the fact that women reported the empty tomb is the best reason to believe it, 'cause it’s not a scenario anybody would make up.” The empty tomb was a fact of history.
        The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus appeared to 500 people at one time after his resurrection. Many of these were still alive at the time Paul wrote that. He basically encourages his readers to go talk with them.
        Another reason Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead is that the whole movement began in Jerusalem. Dr. Maier points out: “Where did Christianity first begin in terms of the organized proclamation that Jesus rose from the dead?  Only one place on earth, Jerusalem. There, least of all, could Christianity ever have gotten started if the moldering body of Jesus of Nazareth were available any time after Sunday morning.  That would have been a wooden stake through the heart of Christianity. There wouldn’t have been a Christian church ever organized.”
        Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is the change of the disciples. Former drug dealer Rene Lopez is now a Christian author—his life was transformed by the risen Christ. He points out: “In the gospels, you have the disciples running scared.  They were all hiding, and overnight you have them then making a radical turnaround and then going before the authorities and proclaiming the very resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Most of them, of course, died martyr’s deaths, going to their grave testifying that what they had seen, Christ risen from the dead, was in fact what they had seen.
         He is risen. He is risen indeed!