Just As He Told You

If someone were to ask you what makes Christianity different from any other world religion, how would you answer that? There really is only one answer to that question -- resurrection of Jesus Christ. If he is not raised, then he is no different than any other religious leader, teacher, or prophet. The entire Christian faith hinges on the historical bodily resurrection of Jesus. His substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection is, as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3, a matter of "first importance" because if Christ is still in his grave, then we are still in our sins, and our faith is in vain. But if Christ has been raised like Mark describes in this passage, then everything changes. If he is alive, then he was exactly who he said he was: the divine Son of God who came to rescue us from our sins, and friends that is good news this morning, because apart from his life, death, and resurrection for us, we have no hope of being declared righteous before a holy God.