Saturday I was sitting in the prayer room going over some notes from last year. Allen Hood spoke Easter Sunday and it was a powerful message about the Resurrection. You are probably thinking "well that is what the preacher is supposed to preach on." You would expect that, but around IHOP we don't always follow the normal traditions. It was a powerful message and a year later I am still remembering the zeal in my heart that it produced. He began the message by saying, "The Resurrection is at the very core of the Christian faith. Inasmuch as the Resurrection can be validated and set forth, Christianity stands or falls. We are the resurrection people; we believe in the resurrection from the dead. Out of the four global religions that are based on a personality, not just a code of ethics or philosophical construct, only one has a founder who claimed that He would rise from the dead—and did. The birth of the Church is dependent on Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Without the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus, no disciples would have left their fishing boats ever again, and no one would ever have gathered in the upper room. What took place early on the third day after the Crucifixion sealed the beginning of a historic shift in world history."

The very foundations that we stand on as Christians is that Christ came for us, walked among us, died a torturous death and the clincher is that He rose from the dead. Not only did the prophets of old tell of this great feet, but Christ Himself walked right up to the pharisees and told them that he would rebuild the "temple" in three days. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” John 2:18-20 They were baffled and thought He was absurd, but later the disciples remember those words and it sealed the deal. No other religious founder has based the veracity of his claims, as well as his ethics, upon an empty tomb and upon post-death appearances in a physical body. Mohammad, Buddha, and Joseph Smith all have grave sites with bones in them— dead, decaying bones.

As if that was not enough to knock you off your feet, then Jesus did a remarkable thing. He appeared to his friends and over 500 people. "Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, “Peace to you.” But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” (Luke 24:36–39)

Tom Anderson (the former president of the California Trial Lawyers Association):
Let’s assume that the written accounts of His appearances to hundreds of people are false. I want to pose a question. With an event so well publicized don’t you think it’s reasonable that one historian, one eye witness, one antagonist would record for all time that he had seen Christ’s body? The silence of history is deafening when it comes to the testimony against the resurrection. As we will see, His opponents don’t even argue the fact the tomb was empty. They concede it.
Zukeran, Patrick. “The Resurrection: Fact or Fiction?” Probe Ministries. 1997. http://www.probe.org/theology-and-philosophy/theology---christ/the-resurrection-fact-or-fiction.html.

There are many "scholars" of the Bible that have come up with crap theories as to explain the resurrection away. It all comes down to the fact that the Jews in Jerusalem could have stopped the apostles in their tracks if they had presented Jesus' dead body in city square. They couldn't do it because the body wasn't there. It would have been historically impossible for the apostles to steal a body from a tomb sealed with a Roman seal and guarded by a Roman guard. The guards would have been executed for falling asleep on the job and the disciples knew they would have been executed for breaking a Roman seal. The disciples were disillusioned, confused and had frankly given up and gone back to fishing. They didn't have the guts to stand up to the Romans while Jesus was a live and they sure we not going to with their leader in the grave. After seeing Jesus for the forty days following the Crucifixion ,the disciples were transformed forever. They went from cowards to bold proclaimers. They went around preaching without even a thought as to what might happen to them. They became sold out and died horrible deaths for the Gospel. People don't do that for a stolen body that is rotten and buried somewhere. No they felt Jesus and saw Jesus and the resurrection power of the Spirit came into them and they finished the race knowing that they to would be raises in resurrection power.

It is an amazing reality that I am still trying to grasp. That the God of the universe, the perfect one came and suffered unimaginable cruelty by the hands of the very things he created to set us free to live with Him throughout eternity. It cannot understand it, however it has changed my heart. It has changed the way that I live. It has changed the way that we'll raise our family, and I believe it will change the way that we will end this life.

I hope that you have a wonderful Easter Sunday and are filled with" the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." Romans 8:11

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26)

"And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, "Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. 18 I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

(Rev. 1:17-18)

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:51–57)