On the morning of
Monday, March 30, 2026
I was texted this question,
"Why do you believe in
"Why do you believe in
This post is the composite of the two texts (along with a couple additional quotes from sources that helped shape my response) I sent to answer the wonderfully curious question above that a friend generously asked me a week before Easter Monday.
After all, this is a good question to ask in light of how the proclamation of Jesus' resurrection, whether conceived of as myth or fantasy or reality, has changed the course of human history even if:
" ... There's no empirical evidence in our lives that anything could ever resurrect. ... Not only is it physically impossible, it seems to fly in the face of everything we see going on in the world around us. All of our best efforts as human beings have been used in war or in oppressing other people. And to say at the end of the day that we could possibly come back to life? It's almost like, number one, why would you want to ever come back here? And number two, how does that even work? ... "
While my answer is by no means exhaustive or particularly enchanting or wise, I hope this exchange between friends provides you with encouragement as you consider if the resurrection of Jesus could possibly be history-altering and personally-transforming good news for you.
"Why Do You Believe
"Why Do You Believe
in the Resurrection?"
Thank you for asking. Since I'm preaching on Matthew 28:1-10 this weekend, here are some things already on my mind:
The Gospels record women as the key eye witnesses to this event even though their testimonies in a court of law weren't allowed and were considered untrustworthy in general ... and yet the news these women shared spread dramatically as good and true news when anyone could have simply scoffed at them as second class citizens.
Jews believed in the resurrection of humanity at the end of time, but not one man in time, especially not one man claiming to be divine (i.e. the epitome of blasphemy unless Jesus, Yeshua was / is Yahweh in the flesh); and Greeks didn't value the body so a resurrection doesn't matter much because matter doesn't matter much to them ... yet they came together across ethnic and cultural differences, Jews and Greeks alongside North Africans, Asians, and more to worship Jesus, this God-man as the visible image of the one God of Israel who is Savior and Lord of all.
The disciples were not willing to be seen with Jesus when He was on trial because they were afraid, and they were hiding out of sight during His crucifixion (except a few women, including Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary, and John, most likely cloaked) and hid even more after He died because they were afraid of being crucified as traitors to the empire with Him ... why would they then claim He was resurrected and then die courageously in horrific ways (i.e. flayed to death, dragged to death, stoned, crucified upside down, etc.) shortly thereafter if before and during the crucifixion they weren't willing to die for Him?
Here is the question
that seems unanswerable:
What did these disciples
get out of their lie?
When someone deceives another,
the deceiver is always motivated
by some thought of advantage.
What advantage did the disciples
gain by their conspiracy?
They got mocked, hated, sneered at,
jeered at, exiled, deprived of their property,
their reputation and their civil rights;
they got imprisoned, whipped,
tortured, clubbed to a pulp, stoned,
beheaded, sawed in pieces, boiled in oil,
crucified, fed to lions and
And under torture none ever
confessed that it was all a
lie, a myth, a fabrication?
This is amazing!
The human heart is
exceedingly fickle,
is it not?
Especially the heart of a liar?
I do not understand what
could have made them endure
such torture except their certainty
that Jesus really did rise
and that they would too.
If they didn't believe
in the resurrection,
why would they give up
the only life they knew
was real for nothing?
If the miracle of the resurrection
If the miracle of the resurrection
didn't really happen,
then an even more incredible
miracle happened.
Twelve Jewish peasants invented
the world's most fantastic
and successful lie for no reason
at all and died for it willingly
and joyfully, as martyrs.
As did millions of others.
But what motivated
the miracle in their lives?
An effect must have a cause
at least as great as itself,
isn't that true?
I do not see what could
I do not see what could
have caused this miracle
of changed lives except
an even greater miracle.
The resurrection would
have such power,
but how could a lie
How did a movement based on the claimed historical resurrection of one man worshiped to be God in the flesh grow from 120 in a room to more than half of the entire Roman Empire's population (i.e. millions upon millions) by AD 400 if it could be claimed as false simply by showing the body of Jesus still in a tomb (which religious leaders and Roman guards could have easily done if Jesus' body was still there), didn't line up with a polytheistic society at all if you're going to try to start a new religion, countered the Roman Empire's gospel that Caesar is the son of god, and welcomed you into the very real possibility that if you joined this community in baptism, you and those you love could most likely die very soon by being crucified, torn apart by lions, sawed in half, burned to death, etc.?
Somehow human history has arguably been most altered by this resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, a poor Palestinian Jew, subjugated under the Roman Empire in the backwater country even His own people didn't think much good could come out of; yet He is the turning point by which the entire globe now values the things His Kingdom of heaven highlighted, celebrated, and accelerated (ex. freedom, kindness, equality, compassion, consent, progress) as those who go searching tend to find that these almost universally accepted values find their potent and expansive roots in how Jesus' resurrection reveals the true value and purpose of human existence.
The longevity and expansiveness
of this resurrection
is summed up beautifully
in one Catholic philosopher's pithy quote,
"Christianity has died many times
and risen again;
for it had a God who knew
the way out of the grave."
+ G.K. Chesterton
And for a lesser reason than its history-altering good news, but its personally transforming truth for me is that I would not be the man (very imperfect that I am), the husband, the father, the friend, the neighbor, the citizen, and the pastor that I am in the ways that mirror Jesus unless He is resurrected and is resurrecting me to be more through His abundant life.
I am neither an optimist
nor a pessimist.
Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!
+ Lesslie Newbigin
One more reason I believe in the resurrection is that if Jesus is the image of true humanity and true divinity, of what life on earth is intended to be, He shows us the way to live is not to avoid loss (ultimately displayed in death), but to endure through loss, trusting that part of this human life right now is facing death, enduring death, but not doing it alone, because Jesus has gone before us, and because He is the Resurrection and the Life, He will walk with us through death to show us it does not have the last word. Love generously preserving into everlasting life has the last word.
Jesus went through the Loss of all losses and came out the other side with more than what He lost. In light of the resurrection, life is more than "do good despite loss" (Stoicism). Life is more than "enjoy life despite loss" (Epicureanism). And life is more than "your loss is part of an illusion and not really real" (Platonism). The resurrection of Jesus reveals we are saved from ultimate loss and we gain more than what we lose on the other side of death.
I think the human desire for death to not have the last word, and that it actually won't based on the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ who has the power to, and will, restore everything sin has broken in this world when He reconciles heaven and earth into the beauty of what creation is intended to be and will be, is expressed in this C.S. Lewis quote in "Mere Christianity":
" ... The Christian says,
'Creatures are not born with desires
unless satisfaction for those desires exists.
A baby feels hunger:
well, there is such a thing as food.
A duckling wants to swim:
well, there is such a thing as water.
Men feel sexual desire:
well, there is such a thing as sex.
If I find in myself a desire
which no experience in this world can satisfy,
the most probable explanation is
that I was made for another world.
If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it,
that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.
Probably earthly pleasures
were never meant to satisfy it,
but only to arouse it,
to suggest the real thing.
If that is so, I must take care,
on the one hand, never to despise,
or be unthankful for,
these earthly blessings,
and on the other,
never to mistake them for
the something else of which
they are only a kind of copy,
or echo, or mirage.
I must keep alive in myself
the desire for my true country,
which I shall not find till after death' ... "
The resurrection of Jesus is
'the thing' that defines Christians.
On the resurrection we stake everything ...
Christians hold on to more than morality,
enjoyment, or our souls —
we hold on to Someone.
+ Curtis Chang
+ Tattooed
Christ is all,
