We are at the Easter or Resurrection Sunday season. I have said for decades that this is the greatest or most important holiday or Holy day on the Christian’s calendar. It is the foundation, the cornerstone of what we believe and who we are. It is the determination of whether or not a person is a Christian, namely the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. No other single day of the year has so much meaning and draws the line in the sand so plainly.

As I have said many times before, God writes history in advance and writes it very clearly. He tells us through prophesies throughout the Old Testament that the Messiah would come, born of a virgin, the Son of God. He would be crucified, buried and after three days or 72 hours, He would rise from the dead.

When the Pharisees came to Jesus they said, “show us a sign.” He responded that no sign would be given except that of the prophet Jonah. He then interpreted that Old Testament passage of Jonah being three days and three nights in the belly of the whale as but a picture of the one test to which God would submit to prove His veracity and that He would keep his Word.

Here the dilemma is addressed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:12-21:

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ be not risen. Then is our preaching in vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not, For if the dead rise not then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

Wow! The good news is, that our preaching and our faith is not in vain and we are not miserable or without hope, but it is all true… Jesus is risen indeed!