He Is Risen!

The Road to the Cross: A Lenten Journey of Surrender and Hope | Day 44 | Easter Sunday

“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.” — Matthew 28:6 (NIV)

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!

Good morning, beloved in Christ, and the most blessed of all mornings: Easter Sunday! We have arrived. Over Forty days ago we began this journey together on Ash Wednesday, marked by dust and mortality, reminded that we are fragile creatures in desperate need of a Savior. We walked through honesty and surrender, through community and prayer, through the shadow of the cross and the weight of Holy Week. We stood at the foot of the cross on Good Friday. We sat in the silence of Holy Saturday. And now, before the sun has fully risen on this first day of the week, the stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty, and the angel is speaking words that split history in two: He is not here. 

He has risen, just as He said.

Matthew 28:1–6 (NIV) gives us the scene with the breathless economy of a moment too large for many words: “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.”” Come and see the place where He lay. The tomb is not a place of death this morning. It is a display case for the most important event in the history of the universe: the grave that could not hold the Son of God.

John 20:11–16 (NIV) gives us something even more intimate: the moment Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus in the garden outside the empty tomb. She was weeping, still living in the grief of Saturday, and she turned and saw Him but did not recognize Him, thinking He was the gardener. And then He spoke one word: “Mary.” She turned and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). Her name. He called her by name. The risen Lord of creation, fresh from the conquest of death, spoke first not a theological declaration but a personal greeting. He said her name. He says yours too. The resurrection is not an abstract doctrine. It is a living person who knows your name and has come looking for you.

What the Empty Tomb Changes

The resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything. Not some things. Everything. Paul understood this with crystalline clarity, and in 1 Corinthians 15:54–57 (NIV) he broke into a declaration that reads less like a theological argument and more like a shout: “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Death has been swallowed up in victory. Not weakened. Not limited. Swallowed up. The resurrection did not merely defeat death in one instance. It declared death’s entire reign over the people of God to be finished, permanently, irreversibly, completely.

Romans 6:8–9 (NIV) presses the permanence of that victory: “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.” Death no longer has mastery over Him. And because it has no mastery over Him, it has no final mastery over those who belong to Him. Every fear we have ever carried about our own mortality, every grief we have sat with over those we have lost, every question we have asked in the dark about whether any of this has meaning, the resurrection answers all of it. Not with a philosophical argument but with an empty tomb and a living Savior who stands outside it calling our names.

The Journey That Brought Us Here

Look back for a moment at the road we have walked. We began in the dust of Ash Wednesday, confronting our mortality and our need. We walked through weeks of honest self-examination, learning to see ourselves as we truly are without the defense of self-righteousness. We learned what it means to carry one another’s burdens, to forgive as we have been forgiven, to pray for one another by name. We set our faces toward Jerusalem alongside Jesus and felt the shadow of the cross lengthen as Holy Week drew near. We stood with Him in Gethsemane and heard Him pray, not my will but Yours. We watched Him wash feet and break bread. We heard seven words spoken from the cross. We sat in the silence of Saturday.

Every step of this journey was designed to bring us to this morning with emptied hands and opened hearts, ready to receive what the empty tomb offers with the full depth of gratitude that over forty days of preparation has produced. The resurrection means more to a person who has walked the road to the cross than it does to someone who arrived at Easter without the journey. You have walked the road. You have felt the weight. And now you stand at the empty tomb knowing exactly what it cost to make it empty, and exactly what it means that it is.

Revelation 1:17b–18 (NIV) gives us the voice of the risen Christ speaking across the centuries to every generation of His people, including ours: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” I am alive for ever and ever. Not for a season. Not for a generation. Forever. And He holds the keys. Death is not a locked door that stands between us and God. It is a door whose keys belong to Jesus Christ, who walked through it and came back holding them. For everyone who belongs to Him, death is not the end. It is the threshold to the forever for which we were always made.

This is the end of the road we have been walking together. And it is the beginning of everything. Jesus Christ, who set His face toward Jerusalem with resolute love, who prayed in the garden until His sweat was like drops of blood, who was betrayed and denied and condemned and crucified, who said tetelestai with His last breath and committed His spirit into His Father’s hands, is alive. He is not in the tomb. He is not a memory. He is not a historical figure whose influence has outlasted His death. He is the Living One, present and personal, calling every one of His beloved by name, holding the keys of death and Hades, preparing a place for all who belong to Him, and coming again to make all things new. He is risen. He is risen indeed. And because He lives, we live. Not someday. Now. Today. This Easter morning and every morning that follows it, in the light of an empty tomb that will never be filled again.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, You are risen! I come to this Easter morning with forty-four days of this journey behind me and a heart that is more prepared to receive the resurrection than it has ever been. Thank You for the road. Thank You for every day of honest self-examination, every moment of surrender, every reminder of my need, every glimpse of Your love, and every step that brought me closer to the foot of the cross and now to the door of the empty tomb. I receive the resurrection this morning not as a tradition or a holiday but as the most world-altering fact in all of history, and I receive it personally, as the living Savior who called Mary by name now calls mine.

Father, let the joy of Easter Sunday be more than a feeling that fades by Monday morning. Let it be a settled, permanent, unshakeable foundation for everything I am and everything I do. Death has no mastery over the One I belong to, and therefore it has no final mastery over me. That changes everything. Let it change the way I face my fears, the way I grieve my losses, the way I love the people around me, and the way I walk through every ordinary and extraordinary day that remains to me. He is risen. And because He is risen, nothing will ever be the same again. To You, O God, be all glory, all honor, and all praise, forever and ever. In the name of Jesus, the Living One. Amen.

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Go and tell someone. The same commission the angel gave the women at the tomb is yours today: come and see, and then go and tell. You have walked forty-four days to arrive at this morning. Carry what you have found here into every day that follows. The road to the cross leads to an empty tomb, and the empty tomb leads to a life that death cannot touch. That is the gospel. That is the hope. That is the word this world is desperate to hear. Go tell it.

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

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