We've been working off a puzzle for the past however many weeks, and when we started Sunday's lesson, this is what our puzzle had finally dwelled down to. As you can see, there's a big white gap in the middle of what seems to be a pretty solid puzzle. We read in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, all of our faith and all of our teaching is useless. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, it doesn't matter that all of the other pieces of the puzzle are complete because there's one that isn't. And since we know God doesn't lie, we know that puzzle piece has to fit. So we were determined to find it! Along the way we read in both Hosea 6:2 and Psalm 16:10 and found three things that have to happen for us to earn that last puzzle piece. Jesus has to be missing from the grave/tomb, we have to be able to live in his presence, and on the third day, He has to rise. We decided to take great efforts to ensure that these three things are true. If this is the last piece of the puzzle, it could change our entire lives, so we wanted to be POSITIVE.
So we decided that instead of JUST looking at the bible for the answers to our question, we were going to explore a little bit around the bible. We asked the kids where the first place they look for something is... After a bit of help, we got to the real answer, which is "the last place I saw it!" So, we reasoned that if Jesus really did rise from the dead, we should check the last place we saw Him! If He's there, we know he didn't really rise. If He's not there, well, we can still think that maybe he did. So here's the evidence that we found that Jesus did in fact, rise from the dead:
- The whole movement of Christianity STARTED in the place where Jesus died and rose from the dead. It's kind of like if I went up to one of you and said, "hey did you see that awesome new amusement park right by the Walmart?" Every one of you would be able to tell me that I'm pulling your leg. Why? Because you pass by that every time you come to church and you've never seen it! Same thing with an empty tomb. These people wouldn't have just taken a disciple's word for it... and it wasn't something they heard about from a distant land. These were people who had SEEN the empty tomb and believed it! So we know there was some validity to what they said.
- Historically speaking, the burial and crucifixion accounts are accurate. This means that historians have said, "hey! that really happened the way he said it!" We can assume that since the same guy wrote the burial, crucifixion, and resurrection accounts of Jesus, that the third is just as accurate as the first two.
- People who aren't Christians, people who DESPISED Jesus, confirmed he wasn't in the tomb... Now, why would they do that unless it was ABSOLUTELY TRUE? This was their chance to really disprove the disciples once and for all. But they had no ammunition to go on. They saw the empty tomb.
- Really, really important people and prophets all had shrines where their bones lay. This dates back thousands of years ago... Yet, there's no shrine for who was considered the GREATEST and MOST IMPORTANT person in History... That tells us that perhaps they couldn't find his bones to build a shrine near... Hmm... No bones, no body!
- Paul says so.
So we looked at all that ammunition that says YES ITS TRUE. But then we decided we wanted to know the other part of the story. So many people don't believe Jesus is the Messiah because they don't think He rose from the dead... There's no dispute that the tomb is empty, but if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, how did He get out of that tomb? We looked at the two big conspiracies people say. And debunked them.
- Some people argue that the disciples stole Jesus' body - Okay first of all, this is totally inconsistent with the disciples' characters. Second of all, we know that 10 out of the 12 disciples (excluding Judas and John) died brutal, awful martyrs deaths for this cause they believed. They died because they believed Jesus died and rose again. If they had stolen the body of Jesus, they would have known that He didn't rise again. Who in their right mind would die for something that they KNEW was a lie? We won't even go to time-out for a lie, let alone die! And then you have to think, lastly... You know, the disciples had just watched their leader get hacked up and thrown on a cross... And people hated them. And they had been so afraid they had literally fled the scene and scattered.... And now we're thinking they risked being seen to go and move a two ton rock out of the way and steal a dead body wrapped in linen? Yeah, uh huh. Not to mention the guards in front of the tomb weren't about to let this body go stolen--that would have been their heads on a platter. So I think we can safely say this conspiracy is just that.
- Some people believe Jesus just got up and walked out - Okay, really? Let's think about this. Jesus is fully human. What happened to Jesus right before he was put in the tomb? He was beaten to the point where he had organs coming out of his body, he was scourged, he had a crown of thorns placed into his forehead, he carried a huge cross up a hill on the same back that was scourged and skinless, was attached with nails to it, hung on that very cross for six hours straining to breathe, had professional executioners announce him dead, and was pierced in the side by a sword so all his blood shot out... THEN on top of that, he was wrapped in 100 pounds of linen (we would liken this to a middle schooler), and he laid in a dark, cold tomb with no water or food for three days... And then, miraculously on the third day he just bolted right out of that linen and pushed that same two ton stone up a hill and appeared to his disciples and they said "HEY! ITS THE CONQUEROR OF LIFE!" Yeah, no. If he had managed to do that, I'm pretty sure the first thing the disciples would have said was "uhh, lets get you to a hospital buddy." I think we can safely assume this conspiracy is pretty much all fabrication... After all, I twist my ankle and I don't want to get up and walk around on it for a few days... Jesus had it much worse, and yet we expect him to just bolt out of the grave. No sense.
So, we can safely assume from all this that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. Check one. So next we're going to look at how it said Jesus came down to live in our presence... HMM. Well, aside from us going up to Heaven to be with him, (Today you'll be with me in paradise, hmm hmm)... We know that Jesus appeared to his disciples AFTER the resurrection. In fact, there's even that instance where Jesus says to Thomas, "hey, come feel the holes in my hand and touch my side where I was pierced"... So we know that he appeared to Thomas AFTER death because he showed Thomas the markings of his death... And the disciples were there when Jesus ascended into heaven... So he definitely appeared after the death... But, those are all Christian sources... Maybe they had an agenda... So let's look at non-Christian sources and see what they say. Yep, even the regular, historical sources that don't believe in Jesus and don't buy into this Christianity thing said that Jesus did in fact appear to people after he died.... Okay. I'm convinced. Check.
So the last one... That it would happen on the third day. Well, this is where we read Luke 24:50:52 and Luke 24:1-7.... Yep, that says third day. Then we counted on our fingers.... What day is Good Friday? Friday. Saturday. What day is Easter Sunday? Sunday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three days. Check.
We put the last piece of the puzzle on the board until finally we were left with this. As Ben and Sam show you, the final puzzle piece is there and now we know without a doubt that Jesus is the Messiah! The one that saves us! YES! We had a huge cheer go up as soon as the puzzle was finished! All of the kids were so excited, and it was so awesome watching them get so thrilled about the end result!
We didn't just leave it there, though. We try to inspire faith with action in our kids, and so we asked the kids what we should do, now that everything we thought has been confirmed to us. What do we do with this knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah? We talked about how the Messiah is the person that saves us from our sins and that helps us live a good life and a life that honors God. So we all decided that since God had done what he promised and sent Jesus, and since Jesus had done what he promised and died for us (AND ROSE AGAIN!), we could trust God to lead us for the rest of our lives. So we put our faith in Jesus, and we prayed that He would cleanse us from our sins and help us lead a holy life. It was definitely really amazing watching as our entire children's ministry committed to following Jesus--I can't wait to see the fruit of it all!
Here are a few more pictures of the puzzle we worked on:
Here's a picture of the whole backboard the puzzle was created on. In the upper left corner was where we put the puzzle pieces with the "clues" on them (we played the whole thing up as a "GUESS WHO" kind of deal, with the Messiah being the answer... All of the prophecies God gave us were "clues" to help us figure out who it was).
Then below that is a timeline of when the Old Testament books were written, to help with showing the kids how much time passed between what God said was gonna happen and what actually did. Then the upper right corner has a checklist (enlarged to the left) of the various prophecies/clues we looked at (but not all of them that are out there!) and then below that is a timeline of Jesus' ministry, so the kids could see how it all played out. The puzzle pieces were attached with velcro, and you can't see it now, but originally there was just a big purple question mark. Each of the puzzle pieces had the old Testament verse and the New Testament fulfillment written on them, and the New Testament verse velcroed on top of the Old Testament verse that was written on the backboard. It was all very cool and the kids loved it, and Ms. Amanda, Ms. Danielle and I loved teaching it! We're looking forward to our next series of lessons, which will be teaching the kids HOW to follow the Messiah. I can't wait!
To see the full list of the prophecies with the verses, click here.
