Chapter 4, Part 3: Who saw Jesus alive?
The empty tomb · Lesson 3 of 3 · About 29 minutes · Grades 1–5
The Evidence for Jesus · A lesson for grades 1–5The empty tomb
Big questionWho saw Jesus alive?
By the end, kids can
- Tell who saw Jesus alive: Mary Magdalene, his friends, Thomas, more than 500 at once, James, and Paul.
- Give reasons the first Christians' answer fits the facts: a real death, an empty tomb, witnesses nobody would invent, and frightened friends made fearless.
- Say the memory verse from memory: Matthew 28:6 (grades 3–4: John 11:25; grade 5+: 1 Corinthians 15:20).
You'll need
- This part's one-page worksheet for each child's level (grades 1–2, 3–4, or 5), handed out at the start
- Pencils
- A screen with sound and internet: the clips come from the video “Who Saw Jesus Alive After He Died?”
Before you teach
This lesson plays one of the chapter's video lessons in clips. Its page makes the same case for teens and adults, with every source written out: watch it to prepare, or use it with older kids and youth groups. Click a part to go to its slide:
- Who saw Jesus alive after he died? Friends, five hundred, and two skeptics · In class: The list, Seen alive, Turned around, Going deeper · Grades 3–5, Good news
The lesson
- 2 min Warm-up: where did the body go?
- 2 min Memory verse: fill in the missing words
- 4 min The oldest report: watch (1 minute), then talk
- 6 min Seen alive: watch (2 minutes), talk, and the worksheet
- 3 min Two who didn't believe: watch (1 minute), then talk
- 3 min Going deeper (grades 3–5): did they just see things? (1½ minutes)
- 3 min Put it together, and a quick check
- 3 min Good news: watch (half a minute), then do you believe this?
- 3 min Memory verse again, talk, and pray
Worksheets
Print this lesson's one-page sheet for each child, at their level. They fill it in as you go: the ✎ Worksheet sticker on a slide says which part goes with it.
Send it home
After class, share the one-minute Short with families, to watch together and talk about this week:
Answer key
The worksheets don't print their answers. Here they all are, and on the slide before the credits.
Grades 1–2
- Who saw him? 1-C · 2-A · 3-B
- Matthew 28:6: not, here, risen, said
Grades 3–4
- Who saw him, in order: 1. Jesus dies and is buried. 2. Mary hears Jesus say her name. 3. Jesus shows his friends his hands and side. 4. Thomas says, “My Lord and my God!” 5. Jesus meets Paul on the road to Damascus.
- John 11:25: resurrection, life, believes, die
Grade 5+
- Test the easy answers: 1-B · 2-C · 3-D · 4-A
- 1 Corinthians 15:20: Christ, raised, dead, firstfruits
Presenting
Each part opens with a ▶ Watch slide that plays a clip of the 8-minute video “Who Saw Jesus After the Resurrection? The Evidence for the Appearances” right on the slide: read the two questions, then click (or press →, or use a clicker) to play the clip. The slides wait while it plays and stops by itself; click twice to stop it early. Then click to show the answers. The clips need an internet connection.
Click the slide, or press → or Space (a clicker works too), to show the next thing; ← goes back, even while a clip plays. F presents full screen (Esc leaves it). P opens the presenter view, a second window with your notes, the next slide, and a timer, that moves with the slides: put it on your laptop and the slides on the projector. N shows the notes under the slides.
Your script
The empty tomb
Say: Part 1: Jesus really died. Part 2: on Sunday, the tomb was empty. Today is Part 3: who saw him alive?
Where did the body go?
Ask: If you found an empty tomb, what would you think had happened? (Lots of things! Mary's first thought was that someone took him.)
Say: The empty tomb wasn't what changed Jesus's friends. Seeing him was. Let's meet the people who said they did.
Clicks: 1. the line “What turned Jesus's friends into witnesses was what happened next: they saw him alive.”
Sources: John 20:1–2 · 1 Corinthians 15:3–8
Remember our verse?
Do: Say it together with the motions. Then click to show each missing word as kids call it out. This time there are four.
Answers: not, here, risen, said (the same words as the grades 1–2 sheet).
Clicks: 1. the missing word “not” · 2. the missing word “here” · 3. the missing word “risen” · 4. the missing word “said”
The list · Watch: The oldest report
Say: Start with the oldest report, a list Paul wrote down.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1 minute.
Ask after: Who is Cephas? How many saw him at once? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Who saw Jesus alive after he died?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: Peter. · 3. the answer to 2: More than five hundred, and most were still living. Go and ask them!
Sources: 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 · Galatians 1:18–19
Go and ask them
Say: Paul had stayed with Peter in Jerusalem for fifteen days, and met James there too. Many scholars date his list to within a few years of the cross. That isn't a legend that grew over generations.
Ask: Why would Paul say most of the 500 were still living? (So people could go and ask them. Nobody tells you to check with witnesses who don't exist.)
Clicks: 1. the line “He knew the people on his list, and he said most of the 500 were still alive to ask.”
Sources: 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 · Galatians 1:18–19
Seen alive · Watch: Seen alive
Say: The Gospels tell what those meetings were like. The first starts with a woman in tears.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 2 minutes.
Ask after: What did Jesus say to Mary? What did he eat? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Who saw Jesus alive after he died?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: “Mary.” And she knew him. · 3. the answer to 2: A piece of broiled fish.
Sources: John 20:11–29 · Luke 24:13–43 · Acts 1:3
Touch me and see
Say: In John's account the first to see him was Mary Magdalene, the witness nobody in that world would have picked. She ran to tell the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”
Say: Thomas wanted proof: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands… I will not believe.” A week later Jesus told him, “Put your finger here; see my hands.” And he ate a piece of fish in front of them. Ghosts don't eat fish!
Worksheet: Grades 1–2 match each one to what happened. Grades 3–4 number who saw him, in order.
Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, Who saw him?: 1-C · 2-A · 3-B
Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, Who saw him, in order: 1. Jesus dies and is buried. 2. Mary hears Jesus say her name. 3. Jesus shows his friends his hands and side. 4. Thomas says, “My Lord and my God!” 5. Jesus meets Paul on the road to Damascus.
Clicks: 1. the line “And he wasn't a ghost: “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.””
Sources: John 20:11–29 · Luke 24:36–43
Turned around · Watch: Two who didn't believe
Say: Some of the people who saw Jesus alive didn't believe in him at all. Watch for two of them.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1 minute.
Ask after: Which brother didn't believe? Where was Paul going? Click once for each answer.
Ask: What would it take for you to believe your own brother was the Lord?
Say: James became a leader of the church in Jerusalem, and around AD 62 he was stoned. Paul, who had hunted Christians, was jailed, flogged, and stoned for following Jesus.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Who saw Jesus alive after he died?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: James. · 3. the answer to 2: To Damascus, to arrest Christians.
Sources: John 7:5 · 1 Corinthians 15:7–8 · Josephus on James (Antiquities 20.200) · Galatians 1:13 · 2 Corinthians 11:23–25
Going deeper · Grades 3–5 · Watch: Did they just see things?
Say: Some say they wanted him back so badly that they saw things. Let's test it.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1½ minutes.
Ask after: Why don't hallucinations fit? What did the apostles do after they were flogged? Click once for each answer.
Say: And a hallucination doesn't empty a tomb.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Who saw Jesus alive after he died?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: It happens inside one mind. He appeared to groups, even 500 at once. · 3. the answer to 2: They walked out rejoicing.
Sources: 1 Corinthians 15:5–8 · Luke 24:36–43 · Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus (1995) · Acts 5:40–42
What happened?
Say: Put all three parts together. A real death. A known tomb, found empty, that even the cover story admitted was empty. Appearances to Peter, to the Twelve, to 500 at once, over forty days. A skeptic brother and a persecutor turned around. Frightened friends made fearless.
Say: Every other explanation has to leave some of that out. The one that fits all of it is the one they gave: Jesus rose from the dead.
Worksheet: Grade 5+ matches all four easy answers, from all three parts, to the facts that sink them.
Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, Test the easy answers: 1-B · 2-C · 3-D · 4-A
Clicks: 1. the card “A real death” · 2. the card “An empty tomb” · 3. the card “Seen alive” · 4. the card “Changed lives” · 5. the line at the bottom
Sources: 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 · Mark 15:42–16:8 · Matthew 28:11–15 · Acts 5:40–42
True or false?
Do: Read each one and have kids stand up for true and sit down for false. Click to stamp each answer.
Answers: 1. False. 2. True. 3. False. 4. True.
Clicks: 1. the answer to 1: False. More than 500 saw him at once. · 2. the answer to 2: True. · 3. the answer to 3: False. He said, “My Lord and my God!” · 4. the answer to 4: True.
Good news · Watch: Those who have not seen
Say: Thomas got to touch the scars. We don't. But Jesus had a word for us too.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's half a minute.
Ask after: What did Jesus say about us? Why did John write? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Who saw Jesus alive after he died?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” · 3. the answer to 2: That you may believe Jesus is the Son of God, and have life in his name.
Sources: John 20:29–31
Do you believe this?
Say: Before any of this, when his friend Lazarus had died, Jesus told Lazarus's sister Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Then he asked her, “Do you believe this?”
Say: Jesus isn't a memory. He's alive, and he still calls people by name, the way he called Mary. If he rose, death isn't the end for anyone who trusts him.
Say: Read one Gospel this week. Mark is the shortest. And answer him.
Clicks: 1. the line “He's alive, and he still calls people by name. He asks you what he asked her: “Do you believe this?””
Sources: John 11:17–27 · John 20:16
Say it from memory
Do: Third time! Cover the words and say it with eyes closed. Who can say it alone?
Worksheet: Everyone fills in the missing words of their own memory verse and colors a star.
Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, Matthew 28:6: not, here, risen, said
Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, John 11:25: resurrection, life, believes, die
Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, 1 Corinthians 15:20: Christ, raised, dead, firstfruits
Talk and pray
Do: Talk about one or two of the questions, then pray together. Kids can repeat the prayer one line at a time.
Say: Next chapter: if Jesus rose, so what? Why did he have to die, and what does it mean for you?
Do: Send the worksheets home, with this part's one-minute Short for families. The link is in your guide, under “Send it home.”
Clicks: 1. the prayer
Answer key
Do: Show this when kids check their work, or keep it on your laptop in the presenter view. The worksheets don't print their answers, so this is the key.
Pictures and Scripture
Every picture on these slides, with its credit, license, and a link to its source.