Top 10 Questions Non-Believers Have about the Easter Story and How to Answer Them

Sin has to be paid for. We all want bad people to be punished for hurting our loved ones or hurting us. But we are all sinners, and God cannot abide sin. We want evil to be punished, but we are also evil. How can we expect God to punish the sins of others and yet turn a blind eye to ours? How can we placate a just God? The sacrifices of Israel were never good enough; they only pointed to Jesus’ ultimate and eternal sacrifice. This is why he says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30). He took the burden of sacrifice upon himself once and for all.

At their final Passover Supper together, Jesus told the disciples to drink and eat to the memory of what he was going to do. “This is my body, which is given for you. [...] This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:19,20) The Father demands a righteous sacrifice, a lamb without blemish. (1 Peter 1:19) Christ came to pay the price and redeem all people who come to him as their Savior. Only he was able to pay the penalty.

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Billy Graham wrote about the speculation surrounding Judas’ choice to betray his master. He was greedy; perhaps he had thought of Jesus as a purely human leader with a lot of power to confer onto his disciples. Is it possible a demon got hold of Judas and controlled him? Graham asserted that “the deeper reason is that Judas refused to believe that Jesus was God’s instrument, sent from heaven to save us from our sins.”Judas’ choice stems from unbelief. He followed Jesus bodily, but he was not following the Rabbi in his heart.

Alyssa Roat comments, “Judas used this position for his own personal gain,” and he also revealed a cold heart towards the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with perfume. (John 12:7-8) He was not trying to save money for the disciples or for the poor; he was hoping to rob the kitty. He was like a Pharisee: a “whitewashed tomb, which outwardly appears beautiful, but within is full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:27)

Judas betrayed Jesus because, although he followed him in the physical sense, his heart was tuned to his own longing for security and power, which he would have with Jesus or apart from him.

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At their final Passover supper, Jesus declared, “But look, the hand of the one betraying me as at the table with me.” (Luke 22:21). Everyone at the table looked around to see who it was, but we know that Judas was the guilty party. “Woe to that man,” Jesus warned. So, yes, Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him.

Why not stop Judas? Or call him out in front of the others so they could punish him or prevent him somehow? For one thing, as noted above, Jesus had to die. Judas’ betrayal helped to set Christ’s feet along his last journey, carrying his own cross to Calvary.

But also, think about the rest of Jesus’ ministry: he never prevented anyone from doing anything, nor did he compel anyone to do something. He called, and people answered - or they did not. Many turned away. Many went back to their sins. Followers of Jesus are free to do what they like. Paul puts it this way: “‘Everything is permissible,’ but not everything is beneficial.” (1 Corinthians 10:23). Jesus did not prevent those around him from satisfying greed, lust, anger, etc. He did, however, offer them a better way and taught them about the rewards of discipleship vs. the consequences of rebellion. For Jesus, there was nothing better than doing the Father’s will. He lived what the Psalmist wrote: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

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Many people, when they learn that Good Friday is the day Christ was crucified, wonder why Christians call this “Good Friday.” After all, crucifixion is horrible. According to an educational article on the BBC, the term “Good Friday” dates back to at least 1290. Justin Holcomb wrote that it is potentially a corruption of “God’s Friday.” Yet, “Good Friday” persists because this day IS good.

Sinners can come to Jesus as Savior because his blood has covered them. That is part one of the Good News of the gospel. And he always alluded to the second part. Consider Jesus’ prophetic statement that he would rise from “the heart of the earth” after three days, just as Jonah spat out the great fish after three days. Except “something greater than Jonah is here.” (Matthew 12:40,41)

Christ’s death was necessary because believers follow him in every respect. We die to ourselves, but we also rise again. We suffer, but we also have victory over our enemies. We cannot have a risen Savior without a Savior who died, and so Friday is Good. Friday indicates to us that Jesus fulfilled everything the Father wanted, and there is nothing more to pay.

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Billy Graham wrote, “Without Jesus’ death, we have no hope of God’s forgiveness; and without Jesus’ resurrection, we have no hope of eternal life. Like the two wings of an airplane, both are essential!” Neither day is more important. If Jesus died, the Roman Empire was more powerful than God. God’s wrath is still upon us. Without his very public and excruciating death, we could forever debate whether or not Jesus died and did not merely faint, as some suggest. Without his rising, we would not possess the hope that our sins were defeated at the cross.

Moreover, Scripture makes little sense without Jesus’ resurrection. Psalm 16:10 says, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol.” These words are echoed in Psalm 49:15, Psalm 86:13,   and Jonah 2:6. The dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision are just delusions (Ezekiel 37). Vast portions of the New Testament become gibberish. “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.” (John 11:25). Jesus also said, “If I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32) In his letter to the church at Colossae, Paul wrote, “if you have been raised with Christ seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”  

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God demands that sin be paid for with blood. Brian Rosner explained, “To bring us near, ‘Christ died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous’ (1 Pet. 3:18). If ‘the unrighteous’ is all of us, ‘the righteous’ is Jesus himself.”

But how cruel, some say, to send Jesus to this particular death. A medical report composed in modern times, based on Biblical and secular records regarding the crucifixion, indicates the horror of this kind of long, slow death. Lee Strobel explained that “The word [excruciating] was invented to capture extreme pain and suffering, and literally means ‘out of the Cross.’"

There is a misconception, however, that Jesus went to the cross against his will. Jesus said to his disciples, “I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me.” (John 10:17-18) Jesus went willingly. He went with joy because he completed the plan he and the Father had established from the start. (Hebrews 12:2) The worst part of the agony was that having taken our sin upon himself, God turned his face away. But Christ loved us so much that he endured this brutality so that we would know he can relate to everything we suffer (Hebrews 4:15) and demonstrate his great power.

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Historians suggest that Easter eggs do, in fact, possess Christian significance since they “represent Jesus’ emergence from the tomb and resurrection.” The tradition of painting Easter eggs is many centuries old and could be related to a Lenten custom. During those 40 days of self-denial, eggs were “forbidden,” so painting eggs was a celebration of the end of Lent. Painting eggs together provides an opening to talk about being reborn in Jesus Christ.

Madeline Kalu indicates that the Easter Rabbit, however, is a pagan symbol. In order to convince pagans to accept Christianity, Monks sent from Rome combined The Resurrection of Christ with the new converts’ belief in a fertility goddess known as Ostara, represented by the symbol of a rabbit. 

The problem is that some people talk about Spring as though they were worshiping a person. They thank “her,” believing there is a specific god or spirit for each season. But God gave us something better by making himself known in the form of a man, Jesus. He has warned us that we can only come to God through Jesus - worship of any other gods is idolatry, and he will not stand for it. “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3)

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One controversy within and outside the church concerns Christ’s death and resurrection between Friday and Sunday. He gave a timeline of three days—was that three days and three nights? Was he saying that Friday is day one, Saturday is day two, and Sunday is day three?

Gabriel N.E. Fluhrer explained that “the Jews of the first century counted days differently than we do today. According to their understanding of days, part of any day counted as a full day. He reminds us that “a bit of reflection and some understanding of cultural differences help us see that there is no inconsistency at all.” 

Ben Witherington III argues that “the phrase ‘after three days’ in the New Testament can simply mean ‘after a while’ or ‘after a few days’ without any clear specificity beyond suggesting several days.” At times, they are being specific, and at others, not so much. Yet, there is a clear emphasis on “three days” as opposed to “a few days” when one examines the Gospels.

Scripture has the final word: the Gospels tell us He was crucified on Friday and rose from the grave on Sunday.” (Fluhrer)

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There are two parts to Easter: believers honor and mourn Jesus’ sacrifice. This is a solemn day for Christians because our sin nailed him to the cross. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24). Sin is real. We are all sinners. Sin is not just murder or rape, or stealing. Sin is any act of rebellion against God’s instructions and commands. We need Jesus as our Savior. There is no life apart from God and no access to God except through Christ’s blood. (John 14:6)

Part two is a celebration of Christ’s victory over sin, Satan, and death. This is certainly a joyful day because Christ really is more powerful than his enemies, and his enemies are our enemies. If Jesus Christ defeated them and we are in Christ, then we have and will continue to defeat them. He defeated our sin ultimately. In Him, we will also defeat our sins day by day. Sin separated us from God when we did not live for Jesus. Now, we can live free from the fear of being separated from our father, in anguish, forever. That is a fantastic reason to celebrate.

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Jesus’ burial clothes contained spices, which were hugely valuable at the time of his death, according to George Sinclair. “The placement of the grave clothes [...] perfectly fits with the resurrection as the cause, rather than with human agency as the cause.” (https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/10-concise-pieces-of-evidence-for-the-resurrection/) These clothes were left behind, but his body was gone. If grave robbers had dared to try and dupe highly-trained Roman soldiers, they would have hurried in, grabbed the body, and dealt with their prize somewhere less dangerous. This is assuming they could have moved the enormous stone.

No grave robbers and Jesus cannot have walked out. Forensic accounts are clear: Jesus was dead. Yet he returned. For those wondering if Christ was dead but an imposter replaced him, again - the testimony of those Apostles who risked their lives to share the Good News tells us that he came to them bodily and ate with them. (Luke 24:41)

He taught and comforted them. Yes, many people heard Jesus preach who would not have been able to get up close and see him, but the ones who knew Jesus as friends spent time with him before he ascended. Why make that up, only to die for a lie? They had been prepared to flee for their lives - but they stayed to preach the Good News to anyone who would listen.

Come To The Father

Why does this all matter to you? Because a loving Savior wants to have a relationship with you. He was willing to endure the cross because he loves you; he wants to embrace you in Heaven. He does not want you to spend eternity with the Devil, but we all have the freedom to choose. When we remember Jesus’ death on the cross and his triumph on the third day, we remember that we cannot afford to be flippant about sin, but we can be free from shame. Jesus could not have risen if he had not first died. Easter is about new life, both his and ours.

Sources:
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection
https://www.crossway.org/articles/4-points-of-evidence-for-the-resurrection/
https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/10-concise-pieces-of-evidence-for-the-resurrection/
https://billygraham.org/story/billy-graham-answers-commonly-asked-questions-about-easter/
https://billygraham.org/answer/christs-death-and-resurrection-are-equally-important-for-our-salvation/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Good-Friday
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27067136
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/holidays/what-s-so-good-about-good-friday.html
https://www.christianpost.com/news/jesus-crucifixion-described-graphic-detail-physician-lee-strobels-book-the-case-for-christ.html

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