He is Risen Indeed

Nobody ever wants to go through a season of hard times or challenges, but when I do, struggles and hard times have a way of making me stand back and ask, “What am I really counting on? Am I building my life on a foundation that’s solid enough that circumstances beyond my control cannot sweep it away?”

That’s why I look forward to this weekend so much… because this weekend we gather to remember the only hope capable of sustaining a human life through everything we experience.

People have not gathered for the past 2,000 years to say, “The economy has risen. It has risen indeed.”

They’re not gathered to say the employment rate has risen, or the value of my 401(k) has risen.

Here’s the one hope that has held human beings across every continent and culture together for two millennia in the face of difficult times of poverty, of disease, of pain, of hardship, of death itself:

Christ is risen.

People at Easter services have always responded back with one additional statement: He has risen indeed.

That’s the phrase right there that simply means it is true.

It’s true. It really happened. It’s not a metaphor. It’s not a vague hope.

It is not a whimsical illusion that is given to comfort children who lost a pet or sick people who have lost their health.

There is only one explanation that accounts for the overnight transformation of an impoverished, confused, frightened little group of people into a courageous, emboldened community that would sacrifice everything including their lives for a Gospel message that turned the world upside down and that is that they actually believed… He Is Risen. Indeed.

Advertisement