Mal Fletcher comments

Jesus didn't challenge us to believe in his teachings or to follow his path - he challenged us to follow him. He said that believing in him was the only way for a man or woman to be made right with God. Most people like to think of Jesus as a nice guy in a caftan who said some amazing things. But Jesus was dangerous!

In many religious systems, no proof is given to back up the teaching aside from the teaching itself. But Jesus claimed to be the Son of God - and then claimed certain proofs in support of this.

First, there's the moral weight of his life. It's one thing to preach a certain lifestyle; it's another thing to live it out. No man ever lived out his own teaching so completely and so consistently as Jesus. The Bible says he was without sin. No other faith makes that claim about its key figure.

Then there's the teaching of Jesus. Most of the world's religious teachers have given us lists of instructions to take us to some spiritual goal. Not Jesus: he did exactly the opposite.

Rather than adding new rules to our lives, Jesus told us that he had come to "fulfill God's law" on our behalf. He taught that, because he lived up to all of God's laws in his lifetime, his death in my place allowed my moral debts to be cancelled.

Jesus made bold claims about being the Son of God and he claimed that the miracles he performed - of healing and deliverance - backed up those claims.

Unlike the stories of some other religions, where miracles take on mythical proportions, the miracles of Jesus were recorded by eye-witnesses as historical fact. Every one of them is located in a specific place, and fits into a sequence of real events.

Miracles were not dropped into the Jesus story to give it effect; they were a vital part of his daily life, and they often formed a part of his teaching.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Jesus' teaching was the way he linked it to his death. He talked about it as if what he was teaching would make no sense unless he died.

Buddha made no such link between his death and his words; neither did Mohammed. According to Jesus, having the rich life he was promising would only be possible once he had died to remove the barriers between me and God.

Of all the proofs Jesus offered us, one was intended to be the most conclusive of all.

He prophesied that on the third day after he died he would rise again, as evidence that what he'd been telling us was true. This claim is totally unique among the founders of the world's religions. In fact, it's so central to the Christian faith that the apostle Paul said if Jesus hadn't been raised from death, Christianity would be worthless.

According to the gospels, Jesus didn't just crawl out of that tomb. He was so completely alive, that his own disciples were overcome with fear when they saw him. He appeared to them on many occasions before he ascended into heaven, walking, teaching and even eating among them.

This was no phantom: they were able to touch his body. This was no hallucination, either. He was seen by up to five hundred and fifty people at one time - people don't have mass hallucinations like that. What's more, they weren't even expecting to see him alive!

There's a museum in Turkey where you can see the sword of Mohammed and what some people say are strands from his beard. Nobody disputes that he is dead. Some people claim to have found a tooth of the Buddha. Nobody disputes that he is dead. Moses is dead and so is Abraham -- nobody disputes that either.

Yet, Jesus left us no physical relics. No part of his body has ever been recovered. Why? Because he has risen from the dead, he is alive.