Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

It is the greatest cry of triumph that the world has ever known! It needs to be shouted loud and often because the resurrection of Jesus changes everything for everyone.

It changes how we look at life. Most people live as if this life is all that there is. “You only live once, so why not go out in style?” is the way actor Jack Nicholson puts it in the recent movie, “The Bucket List.” The premise of the movie is that his goal, along with actor Morgan Freeman’s, is to discover the joy in their lives before it’s too late. Lots of people live with this as their unspoken assumption. All this changes once we hear the resurrection cry. This life is not all that there is; in truth, this life is just the beginning of life eternal and the next life is more exciting and satisfying than this life will ever be.

It changes how we look at death. According to Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Both are bad news! Death is so often seen as the end of all that we love and is to be avoided at all cost; but sadly, in the end, it is something to which we must all submit. Not so fast, says the apostle Paul who writes, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Once we profess the truth of the resurrection then death is no longer to be feared. It loses its power over us. We know that death is not the end of everything but the beginning of a new life in the presence of the One who is the Lord of life.

It changes how we look at Jesus. “I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history,” wrote H.G. Wells. There have been lots of other people who have claimed to be the Messiah but none of them have ever been raised from the dead! The resurrection makes him unique. Jesus beat death! He is the only man ever to do so. But what is even more astonishing is that Jesus promises that all those who put their trust in Him will beat death also.

It changes how we look at ourselves. “Got any rivers you think are uncrossable? Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through? God specializes in things thought impossible and does the things that others cannot do,” according to that old Gospel chorus. Once we hear the resurrection cry we know that nothing is impossible for God. When we look at the challenges in our own lives and in the world around us we do so with confidence.  We know that Jesus overcame the very worst that the world could throw at him and in his Name we can do the same. That is the glorious promise of Easter Day. It is a promise to be proclaimed to the whole world because it changes everything.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The Rt. Rev’d Martyn Minns
Missionary Bishop of CANA

Let us consider, beloved, how the Master continually proves to us that there will be a future resurrection, of which he has made the first-fruits, by raising the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Let us look, beloved, at the resurrection which is taking place at its proper season. Day and night show us a resurrection. The night sleeps, the day arises: the day departs, night comes on. Let us take the crops: how and in what way does the sowing take place? “The sower went forth” and cast each of the seeds into the ground, and they fall on to the ground, parched and bare, and suffer decay; then from their decay the greatness of the providence of the Master raises them up, and from one grain more grow and bring forth fruit.

—Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 24

Indeed, the Church has a future; it has the future. This is the eighth day which passes description and cannot be foreseen, the day on which God will complete his work of creation, the Church will reach the goal of its pilgrimage and the world will recognize its Lord. “And that seventh age will be our sabbath, a day that knows no evening, but is followed by the day of the Lord, an everlasting eighth day, hallowed by the resurrection of Christ, prefiguring the eternal rest not only of the spirit, but of the body as well. Then we shall have holiday and we shall see, we shall see and we shall love, we shall love and we shall praise. Behold, this is how it shall be at the end without end. For what else is our end, but to come to that kingdom which has no end?”

—Hans Küng, The Church

The resurrection can only be received and affirmed and celebrated as the new action of God whose province it is to create new futures for people and to let them be amazed in the midst of despair.

—Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

I am not a fan of Brueggemann because I think much of his writing is mired in the hopelessness of liberal revision that seeks to rewrite the Christian faith to match its own fallen and despairing image. Perhaps that is why I also find great swaths of his writing to be incomprehensible. Nevertheless, he hits a home run with his statement above.

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where’s thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!

—Charles Wesley