Risen Indeed

They came before sunrise, carrying spices to anoint a dead man. That is the detail Luke gives us, and it is important, these women were not coming to witness a miracle. They were coming to finish a burial. Hope, for them, had been sealed behind a stone. And then the stone was gone.

Two angels in shining garments met them with a question that still rings through every generation: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen." Those seven words, he is not here, but is risen, are the pivot point of all human history. Everything before them was preparation. Everything after them is response. The women ran. Peter ran. And when Peter stooped and looked into the empty tomb, Luke tells us he "departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass." Wonder is the right response. It still is.

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians decades later, lines up the witnesses like a court record: Jesus appeared to Peter, then to the twelve, then to more than five hundred at once, then to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all to Paul himself. This is not mythology dressed in religious language. Paul is saying: ask them. Most of them are still alive. Go ask them what they saw. The resurrection was not a feeling or a symbol, it was an event with witnesses.

For the new reader, here is the good news in its plainest form: death did not win. The grave could not hold him. And because he rose, everything he said about himself is true, everything he promised you is secure, and the last word over your life is not death but life.

For the believer who has carried this truth for years, do not let familiarity dull the wonder. Paul never got over it. He called himself "one born out of due time," still astonished that the risen Christ had appeared to him. The resurrection is not background information for your faith. It is the heartbeat of it. He is risen. He is risen indeed. And because he lives, so shall you.