Community Groups: Vail Christian Church is not a church with community groups, but a church of community groups. To find your community group, contact Tim Sheaffer at tim@vailchristian.com.

You can also visit the Community Group page on our website at www.vailchristian.com/community.

Strategic Service Teams: SST’s are volunteers gathered together to serve within and outside the church. Volunteers are vital to Vail Christian and we look to them to facilitate environments and potentially lead people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Contact tim@vailchristian.com for more information.
View our list of service teams and contact information at www.vailchristian.com/
serviceteams.

Palm Sunday Picnic: Don't miss our fourth annual Palm Sunday Picnic! Food, games, Eegee's and tons of fun for your whole family!

1pm - 5pm at Purple Heart Park in Rita Ranch

Trailhead Class: April 26th - 11:00am

What is Trailhead? It's the beginning of the journey. If you've been thinking about making yourself a part of Vail Christian Church, this is the place to start.

Begin your journey with Vail Christian Church on April 26th!

More Than An Empty Tomb
by Alan Reber
 

Did Jesus rise from the dead, and if he did, is there evidence for the event? This is more than an idle question, for as Paul says, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty” (1 Cor. 15:17).

The evidence begins with an empty tomb. It is hard to deny that there really was an empty tomb where Jesus had been buried. After all, if the women had gone to the wrong tomb as some have argued (and then John and Peter made the same mistake later on), it would have been a simple matter for the people who buried him and had a stake in his staying dead (the Jewish religious leaders), to produce the body - but never did.

As an aside, the very fact that the Gospels place such an emphasis on the involvement and word of women argues for the veracity of the resurrection accounts. In the Jewish world of Jesus’ time, the word of women was not important. For example, women were not allowed to testify in trials. If a Jew wanted to make up a believable story of a Resurrection, they would never have used a woman as a witness!

So we have an empty tomb, but so what? Interestingly, by itself, an empty tomb is at best indirect evidence of a resurrection. Thomas’ reaction in John 20 shows that. In truth, there are any number of ways the tomb could have been emptied. For example, some have argued that the disciples stole the body. Others have claimed that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross; he just passed out, and then revived in the tomb, somehow got out, and then convinced his disciples that he had risen. Grave robber could have stolen the body. I could go on.

The problem with all these possibilities is that they all fall apart for the same reason. No stolen body, no wrong tomb, no mass hallucinations and no made-up resurrection stories can account for either the behavior of the disciples or the amazing growth of Christianity. The disciples were scared and scattered after the Crucifixion. After the Resurrection, they became bold, wiling to die painful, solitary deaths to spread the Gospel. It is inconceivable that they would have acted as they did, or that Christianity would have spread as it did were it not for a real resurrection.

There is much more that could be said of the evidences for the Resurrection. For more in-depth treatment of the topic, see books by Lee Strobel, Simon Greenleaf or Frank Morrison.

The web is full of articles, see for example, www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html.