Easter, The World’s Most Important Day

If Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your faith … you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:14-17)

With these powerful words from his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul helps us see the essential influence he attaches to Jesus’ resurrection. Indeed, the solution to the problem, posed by the tragedy of the cross, is found in this event.

Some people have asked, “Do we really need to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? Do we really need to live in hope of Christ’s return when he will raise up all bodies?

Responding to doubts and concrete questions that the faithful brought to him, Paul does not budge. If there is no resurrection, there is no hope. If there is no resurrection, then everything we thought we knew about God is a lie. If there is no resurrection, then all we have is this life. And the so‑called gospel is not really “good news” at all.

If there is no resurrection, then the Cross would remain a tragedy, an embarrassment to all Christians, a stain on our existence. Yet, when Jesus left the tomb empty, the Cross became the sign of our salvation, the gateway to life.

As a reader of this blog, May I be then, one of the first to greet you with the early Church’s traditional Easter greeting, “He is Risen!” to which you respond, “He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

After Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, it was common practice for the early Church believers to greet one another with these words as they witnessed to each other the daily hope and joy that was theirs in the crucified and risen Lord.

The first part of this earliest of Easter greetings is found in three of the Gospels and is based on the joyful proclamation of the angels observed near the tomb interjecting to the passersby “He is not here, He is risen.”

The second part of the greeting is found in the account of Jesus meeting two men on the road to Emmaus. The men did not recognize Jesus and chatted with him about their master being killed in Jerusalem. Jesus went on to explain to them from Old Testament sources how the Messiah had to die, and once the two men reached Emmaus, they invited him to join them for dinner.

And it came to pass, as he sat at meal with them, he took bread, and blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.” (Luke 24:30-35)

St. Paul’s experience of seeing the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 15:8-11) changed his perspective on when and how God was renewing His creation. St. Paul’s hope for resurrection was no longer a distant future dream. God’s life-giving power had invaded the cosmos and conquered death by resurrecting Jesus. With this act, God declared certain victory over death.

For God to defeat Death is the signal that God has defeated the power of Sin. God’s resurrection of Jesus is the surety, the first fruit, that God will defeat the powers of Death and Sin for all creation. It is the decisive act that has determined God’s ultimate victory.

Therefore, everyone, shout it from the rooftops, “He is risen…He has risen indeed.”

Your salvation is at hand. Rejoice! Alleluia!