The Resurrection is a Really, Really Big Deal (Part 2)

Most Christians know deep down that the Resurrection is important. They feel in their gut that the moment Jesus came back to life is a pivotal scene in human history. But many have a hard time articulating why the Resurrection is a really, really big deal. That's why I'm writing this series.

Let's begin with this: the Resurrection is so vitally important because it proves that Jesus truly was the Son of God. 

During his life and ministry, Jesus is billed as God's Son. On two occasions, at his baptism and on the mountain of Transfiguration, the voice of the Father boomed down from heaven declaring Jesus to be his Son: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17; 17:5). In the middle of Matthew's gospel, Peter makes the famous confession that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the living God" (16:16). And significantly, Jesus tells Peter that this confession was not just something he conjured up in his head, but that it was revealed to him by the Father in heaven. The idea that Jesus is God's Son does not arise from man's mind, but comes down from God. And finally, as Jesus is standing on trial before his death, Caiaphas the high priest asks him point-blank, "Are you the Christ, the Son of God?" Jesus does not waver in his affirmation: "You have said so" (Matthew 26:63-64).

Jesus is unequivocally declared to be the Son of God during his ministry. But then came the Cross. Then came that infamous Friday. When Jesus died, these claims no longer held much water for Jesus's followers. When Mary Magdalene and the other women rush to the disciples to tell about the empty tomb, their story is dismissed as worthless. "These words seemed to them an idle tale" (Luke 24:11). The disciples reject the story of the empty tomb because the death of Jesus had caused them to doubt the power of his deity.

But once the evidence started adding up that Jesus truly did come back to life, it changed everything. The doubt that sprang from his death completely evaporated because the Resurrection verified Jesus's claim to be God's Son. It proved, and proves, that Jesus was who He said He was all along.

All throughout the holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street, the man Kris Kringle claims to be Santa Claus. But it's not until the end of the movie that his identity is verified. It's only on Christmas morning when little Susan gets everything she had asked for from Kris that she comes to believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Kris is who he claimed to be: Santa Claus! Jesus never made his status as God's Son a secret; it was a title He embraced, and his followers knew it. But it was only after his Resurrection that this identity was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. As Paul says, Jesus "was declared to be the Son of God in power...by his resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). That scene at the tomb when Jesus Christ rises from the grave shouts at us, "Jesus really is God's Son!"