Jonathan Threlfall is the lead pastor Trinity Baptist Church in Concord. He lives in Bow.
700,000 Granite Staters. 272 million Americans. $23.6 billion.
That’s how many people were expected to celebrate Easter in 2025 — and how many dollars were projected to be spent on it, according to recent surveys.
As staggering as those figures are, they don’t come close to calculating the cultural impact of this celebration. Across the country and right here in New Hampshire, people filled churches, ate chocolate bunnies, looked for hidden eggs and reflected — however briefly — on ideas of renewal, hope and life overcoming death.
But it’s worth pausing to ask: What is Easter actually about?
At the center of the Easter story is a bold claim: that Jesus of Nazareth — a first-century Jewish rabbi — was crucified under Roman authority, died and on the third day, came back to life. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. But physically — bodily — alive.
That’s the claim that turned a handful of grieving followers into history’s most surprising and wide-reaching global movement. It’s also the claim that prompts me, someone with a naturally skeptical bent, to ask the obvious: Did it really happen?
What if — for all the billions of dollars spent, for all the people involved and for all the optimism and grandeur of Western civilization — what if the corpse of that Jewish rabbi is a pile of dust somewhere?
It’s a historically important question, but many people would say that it doesn’t really matter. After all, they say, it’s the idea that counts. So long as we retain the spirit of Easter, that death is not the end and that a better future is coming, we don’t need to insist on something as abnormal as an actual bodily resurrection.
But I can’t help thinking of it this way: If I had cancer, would I prefer a real cure, or the idea of one? Hope, no matter how poetic, is only as good as what grounds it.
And this question is not new. About 25 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, the early Christian leader Paul, his back criss-crossed with scars, and his body battered from beatings, dictated these words to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Corinth: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile,” and “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:16, 19).
In other words, even Paul, a deeply committed believer, admitted that if the resurrection didn’t happen, the whole Christian message falls apart.
That’s what makes Christianity different from every other religion or worldview. Most religions offer a set of timeless teachings or moral insights, a way of life. Christianity, on the other hand, rises or falls on a historical event and offers not just a way of life but life itself. It doesn’t ask us to follow Jesus because his teachings are inspiring. It calls us to trust him because he conquered death.
Which brings me back to the evidence for this event. For those willing to examine the historical record with an open mind, four widely agreed-upon facts demand attention: Jesus was executed by crucifixion. His tomb was later found empty. Multiple individuals and groups claimed to see him alive. These same people were radically transformed, many enduring persecution and death for their testimony.
These aren’t fringe opinions. They’re recognized across a broad spectrum of historical scholarship, including by many who don’t believe in the resurrection. There is no commonly accepted alternative explanation for why the early followers of Jesus, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose, persisted in proclaiming that Jesus was alive, even under threat of death.
Apart from a real resurrection, Jesus’ teachings turn out not to be good ethics but self-defeating advice. He taught that the meek would inherit the earth, that it’s better to lose your life than to keep it and that true riches aren’t found in wealth but in heaven. Unless he actually defeated death, this isn’t good advice — it’s delusion.
Apart from a real resurrection, the German philosopher Freiderich Nietzsche was right in saying that Christianity preaches a “slave morality” that glorifies suffering, suppresses strength and denies the will to power.
But if Jesus really rose, then the world has been changed at its deepest level.
The resurrection is not just an idea that offers palliative care for the human race; it is the beginning of new creation.
That’s why I celebrated Easter: not for tradition, or optimism, or sentiment but because I believe something happened in history that changed everything.
As Paul wrote, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4).