Easter’s Challenge to the Non-Christian (Three Minute Clip)

Why should non-Christians care anything about Easter? This day where Christians celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the grave. I would encourage any non-Christian, in fact, I encourage non-Christian friends of mine, to think about this on a couple of different levels. 

First, if Jesus didn’t arise from the grave—if what Christians are celebrating on Easter is not true—then the Bible itself actually tells people to pity Christians (1 Corinthians 15:19). Christians should be pitied among all men because they’ve based their entire lives on a lie. And so, if you are not a Christian, and you don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead, then the message of the Bible is “pity Christians” if that’s not true. 

At the same time, if it is true that Jesus did rise from the dead, then that has huge implications. Not only for Christians, but huge implications for every single person on the planet, regardless of what belief system or religion you might adhere to, or non-religion, for that matter. 

Many times people think about religion, or non-religion, in terms of preferences and opinions, whatever works best for me. All religion’s kind of fundamentally the same, just superficially different. But this is where the reality of Easter confronts us: this is not an issue of preference or opinion. This is a matter of truth or error. Either Jesus did rise from the dead, and he’s conquered death, or he didn’t. That’s not preference or opinion, that’s fact or lie.

I would encourage you as a non Christian, just like I encourage my non-Christian friends, to really think through that issue. And some of my friends will say, “Well the burden the proof is on Christians to show that Jesus did rise from the dead.” There’s truth to that: Christians need to have a reason for why they believe that Jesus rose from the dead. 

At the same time, I think there’s also a burden of proof on non-Christians, because there’s no question that a couple of thousand years ago, a movement sprung up almost overnight, of people who claim that Jesus had risen from the dead and they were losing their lives for it – a movement that has spread like it has for two thousand years. So there’s a burden of proof to explain what the explanation is behind that, how it was a hoax, or this or that.

My encouragement for anyone is to dive into this crucial claim that’s at the center of all Christianity, because it has implications far beyond those who would call themselves Christians. 

Did Jesus rise from the dead? 

I would encourage you to dive into an answer to that question, and as you do, realize that the implications of that answer are eternally important. Not just for Christians, but for non-Christians as well.