Throughout the world Christians will rise before dawn on Easter Sunday morning to go and celebrate a sunrise service together. From every country, every language, every tribe, they gather together to celebrate the moment that Mary and then John and Peter ran to the tomb and found it…empty. These believers will greet each other with the words:

 

“He is Risen!” And the response:

“He is risen, indeed!”

 

Later, many of these celebrants will join their larger congregations for a joyful celebration of the day that Christ our Savior rose from the dead. Defeating death. Defeating sin. Bringing hope and joy to all who put their trust in Him. He is risen.

 

What are they celebrating? Redemption. Redemption of a sin weary world full of war and pain and suffering and slavery being redeemed in one act of sacrificial love in the death of a glorious Savior. Then the same Savior kicking death and hell in the teeth and walking out of that garden tomb. He is Risen. He is Risen, indeed.

 

And we know this not because one person shared this story, but multiple people shared their encounters with the glorious risen Christ: Mary, first at the tomb, John and Peter, then the entire room of disciples who were hidden in fear for their lives in the Upper Room. Imagine that moment when in walks Jesus, right through the walls. Joy, rapturous joy. And love. Oh! The love.

 

Later, there were the two walking home on the road to Emmaus remembering what had just happened in Jerusalem when Jesus himself came and began to walk with them! I think He was having so much FUN!!

 

He appeared to them over a period of forty days the scripture says, and during that time he gave many convincing proofs that he was, indeed, alive. He ate with them, He taught them. And He made them a promise, that if they were to wait in that place after He left, He would send ‘Another Comforter” to them, to be with them forever. He promised they would be baptized with fire and with the Holy Spirit.

 

After that, to them nothing was impossible. The accounts are written in church history of their travels and the hundreds of churches they planted throughout the known world, from the British Isles, to the Russian Caucasus mountains, to the kingdoms of India and Persia, and though all of Europe and the Middle East.

 

All of this because of one thing. Jesus was alive. Jesus IS Alive. He lives!

 

~ Debbie Ecker