One Easter morning, a woman was on her way to church when her car broke down. Not wanting to be late for the special service, she ordered an Uber to pick her up. The car arrived, and she quickly jumped in the back. Halfway through the ride, she asked the driver a question, but the driver didn’t seem to hear her or respond. So, she leaned forward and tapped the driver on the arm. The driver let out a loud scream, swerved into the other lane, almost hit another car, slammed on the brakes, and skidded over to the shoulder. The woman and driver sat in silence for a minute from the shock of what just happened. Finally, she said apologetically, “Wow, I’m so sorry. I had no idea that tapping your shoulder would alarm you like that.” “No, that’s not it,” he responded. “It’s just that this is my first day driving an Uber. For the past 25 years, I’ve been driving a hearse.”

 

Likewise, we are so used to living in a world where dead means dead. When we go to a funeral, we don’t expect the body in the coffin to suddenly sit up. If it did, we would probably react in a manner similar to that former hearse driver. So, even though there is plenty of empirical evidence and historical data to support the truth of Christ’s resurrection, it is nonetheless something that we have difficulty wrapping our heads around in the here and now. But the most incredible “proof” is still as present to us today as it has been all throughout history. The proof that we can tangibly see and comprehend is the unexplainable changed lives of those in whom the risen Christ lives. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his book Great Lent, put it this way: 

 

“On Easter we shall celebrate again Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and to live by it. It is a gift which radically alters our attitude toward everything in this world, including death. It makes it possible for us joyfully to affirm: “Death is no more!” Oh, death is still there, to be sure, and we still face it and someday it will come and take us. But it is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage – a “passover,” a “Pascha” – into the Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies into the ultimate victory. “Trampling death by death,” He made us partakers of His Resurrection. Such is the faith of the Church, affirmed and made evident by her countless Saints.”

 

The earliest creed of the Church was the simple confession, “Jesus is Lord.” “Jesus” speaks to His humanity, “Lord” to His divinity, and “is” rather than “was” speaks to the fact that this historically verified man who died a historically verified death, is somehow still alive and at work transforming the lives of those who invite Him in as Lord. Jesus is Lord! Death could not hold Him. The grave could not contain Him. As St. John Chrysostom says in His Easter sermon, “Hell took in a body and met God face to face.” Then that body shattered the gates of hell and set the captives free. And He is still shattering hell and setting people free today, free from the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil, and alive unto God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now that’s something worth shouting about! 

 

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!