Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Yamauchi was sought out and found by Lee Strobel, an investigative journalist who was determined to discover any corroborating evidence about the life and teachings of Jesus and the early church. After a long conversation and examination of historical sources in Professor Yamauchi's study the investigative reporter asked, "What do we know about Jesus apart from the teachings and witnesses of the New Testament?" He followed up his question by asking, "What if we pretend we do not have the evidence of the New Testament or that of historical writings by ancient Christian leaders, what would we be able to corroborate from ancient non-believing writers about who Jesus was?

Professor Yamauchi answered, "Even without the Christian writers we have several non-Christian sources that give us insights into who Jesus was. We have Josephus, the Jewish Talmud, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and others. From these records we know the following:

1. Jesus lived in the first century and was a Jewish teacher;

2. Many people believed that He performed healings and exorcisms;

3. Some people believed that He was the Messiah;

4. He was rejected by the Jewish leaders;

5. He was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius;

6. Despite his shameful death, his followers, believed He was still alive and spread the story so much so that a large group of Christians lived in the City of Rome in AD 64.

7. All kinds of people, across the Roman Empire, from cities and countryside -- men and women, slaves and free -- worshipped Him as God."(see Lee Strobel, "The Case for Christ" pp. 86,87).

In the early 1990's Clara (my wife) and I visited Jerusalem. We walked through the ancient city, tracing the last journey Jesus made through the city before his death. We stopped at the places, called stations of the Cross. These are places that tradition says certain acts of suffering happened to Jesus as He made his way out of the city to "place of the skull" to be crucified by the Romans, dying for the sins of all humankind. We ended the journey, outside the ancient city, at a place where a great stone cliff bears the image of a human skull. The scriptures tell us that Jesus was crucified out of the city at the place of the skull. Close by is an ancient garden. In that garden is an ancient grave, carved out of a large rock. It was there we paused for a worship service and including looking into the empty grave as some disciples did on Easter morning. Then we sang, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." We concluded the service by the reading the Easter story.

Twenty four hours later we were standing in New Home Baptist Church near Trenton, Georgia singing with a wonderful choir, led by a member of our family, singing, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." We thanked God for the many unknown witnesses who have carried the story of the death and resurrection to multitudes from the empty tomb outside Jerusalem to the dedicated group of Christian disciples in Dade Country, Georgia.