Introduction

Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the world.
– Archimedes

I’m not going to deal with evidences, or proofs, or anything of the sort, for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That isn’t the question. The question is as follows: “Was the Resurrection of Jesus Christ a lever long enough to move the world?”

The answer? A resounding “YES!”

Why is this? Well, that’s what I’m here to talk about. Contrary to the beliefs of many non-Christians, the most important concept in Christianity is NOT His birth, His teachings, His death, His healing, His moral authority, or His claims.

The central tenet of Christianity lies here: That Jesus died, He rose from the dead, physically, and promised to do the same for everyone that believes in Him, and serves Him as Lord. On that basis, everything else in Christianity rests. The incredible spread of Christianity, its well-nigh-impossible staying power, and its far-ranging influence all stem from this tenet.

This is not the extent of Christianity, or the sum total of it – but therein lies it’s uniqueness. A historically verifiable claim, resting in space-time, and a promise, made in an equally verifiable space-time, that the same thing will be done for those who follow Him.

Jesus died, and He was buried – then rose from the dead, was seen by His disciples, and hundreds of others. That is the testimony of people who died for claiming it. They wrote about it, preached it, and the constant message of the Gospel is that exact same thing.

Testimony of the Church

The entire New Testament was written from the perspective of the resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection may be called the major premise of the early Christian faith. – G. E. Ladd

The gospel without the resurrection was not merely a gospel without a final chapter; it was not a gospel at all. – M. Ramsey

Without the Resurrection, the Church would not be the Church. The Bible, as it stands would not be complete. It is chock full of references, doctrine, and flat-out attestations to the fact. liberal theology, and its higher criticism, seeks to undermine its authority, yet has failed in all of its attempts.

The Bible teaches that Jesus died, was resurrected, and promised the same to us. That is why it is unique. Regardless of all of the other doctrines contained in the Christian faith, this doctrine is perhaps more deeply seated, and more required than any other, save perhaps the Atonement, Trinity, and by extension, the Deity of Jesus. Deity is required to support His claims. Trinity is required to coincide with the uniqueness of His person, and His references to “His Father”. His resurrection requires Deity, and His Atonement requires Deity as well. Only perfection can adequately atone for all of humanity’s sins – and only Deity can be truly perfect.

So, let’s examine some of the more crucial passages of Scripture which teach this.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

We continue in 1 Corinthians 15, with verses 12-19, which give the logical progression of a failure to believe the Resurrection, in Christian theology:

Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

Then, we get Paul’s triumphal answer, in verses 20-22.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

Finally, we get Paul’s almost lyrical, exalted description of the Christian’s hope and final destination, at the end of the chapter – verses 51-58:

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is one of several passages we’re going to deal with. The others:

Romans 6

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. – Romans 6:8-9

But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:22-23

The most famous verse, perhaps: John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Further, we have John 6:40, Titus 1:2, 1 John 2:25, 1 John 5:11, and Jude 1:21, to name a few.

This should underscore the importance, and relation of the resurrection of Christ to believers.

Now that we’ve established that, and given our references for the importance of the Resurrection in Christianity, let’s establish the uniqueness of this claim.

A Truly Unique Claim

…those who say that Christ stands side by side with similar myths, and his religion side by side with similar religions, are only repeating a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking fact…

…whether or no it is the twilight of gods, it is not the daylight of men.

I maintain that when brought out into the daylight these two things look altogether strange and unique; and that it is only in the false twilight of an imaginary period of transition that they can be made to look in the least like anything else.
– G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Christianity is monotheistic, and as such, differs from all of the pantheistic religions. It differs from Eastern philosophies, and their innate pessimism. It differs from philosophies, from humanisms, from anything else. Anything else but another monotheistic religion. From those monotheistic religions, it differs in that God is not only God, but a loving God. In this respect, we find the “God is love”, repeated over, and over throughout the Christian New Testament, as something new.

Eastern paganism really is much more all of a
piece, just as ancient paganism was much more all of a piece, than the modern
critics admit. It is a many-coloured Persian Carpet as the other was a varied and
tessellated Roman pavement; but the one real crack right across that pavement
came from the earthquake of the Crucifixion. – G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Religion seeks to give us comfort, and a sense of connection, via the spiritual ties binding us all to the ineffable. The Resurrection is a tie both corporeal, and tangible – something altogether new.

The Resurrection is a promise – the first of it’s kind, backed up by a demonstration in full view of the people it was promised to. It is this which gives it the power, and the means to propagate. It is a rallying cry for immortality. It promises life – while denying death’s power and influence.

Nothing else denies evil so powerfully, while affirming life – and, indeed, immortality of the mind, soul, and body. This is Christianity’s power, and it’s message. Divorced from this promise – this central tenet – it is nothing special, and it is simply another “way to God”. It claims however, in fact, to be the only way to God. Immortality and exclusivity.

Further, it tells us that not only are we to be resurrected into immortality – we are given a proof that it is possible. A historical, attested resurrection of the man who claimed to be God – and to have died to save us from death. No stranger romance was ever penned. God becomes man, and lives to die, that we may die with Him- then live, and never die again. The Greatest Story Ever Told – and the strangest one. It is too real to be real, some say. It contains too many lifelike twists to be anything but life itself. It is too full of paradoxes to be platitudinal. It is too empty of platitudes to be merely philosophy. It is too reasonable to be mythology. It is too ideal to be anything but the words of God to man.

Immortality and exclusivity, and historicity.
Monotheism will never be the same again.

Christianity, set side by side with other religions, we have already said, is something completely different. It is something which nearly defies description. It fights, kicks, and screams against trite, neat classification – and it loathes being lumped with anything else. It devours anything not itself.

It is something both strange and exotic – yet familiar and comforting. Something entirely unique from the Judaistic “Lord of Hosts”. He is that, of course – but He is something further, in the New Testament. He is also the Savior, and not just the high and lofty Deity. He is both closer to us, and further away.

Christianity, when it spreads, is like a virus. A virus which destroys all others. It spawned from Judaism – but it was utterly different – because it completed Judaism. Judaism was patriarchal, and kept women as second-class citizens. It despised foreigners, because it kept itself apart from all others, to protect it from idolatry (not that it ever worked). It was concerned, above all, with staying apart, and separate, from all others.

It was concerned with the ritualistic observances, which tried to give those who observed them the best chance possible to avoid all sin. Even then, they still failed. Judaism was a religion established to show that religion, when practiced by man, will always fail. It was the ultimate law to be kept. It was an utter disaster.

Then we reach the sacrificial offerings. What gets lost in all of the ritual drama is this simple fact: As a substitute for the sins of the people, a sacrifice was made, which somehow propitiated God – because He said it would. That was the real key to Judaism – and they always missed it. They valued the law over grace, because they, like every other religion, concentrates on practices, which supposedly lead to righteousness. The POINT of Judaism was not the laws – it was the sacrifice which atoned for the violations of the law. It was just a picture of what they were really looking forward to. The arrival of the single sacrifice which all of those animal sacrifices stood for. The Messiah – God Himself, dying for the sins of the world.

Jesus changed everything. He loved the sinners, and ministered to them. He loved the women – and appeared first to them, when He rose again. He healed the unclean. He ministered to the hated Romans, and healed their sick. He blasted mere ritual as hypocrisy – and gave, paradoxically, an even higher standard to attain. He despised self-righteousness, and used the humble to spread His message. He confounded the sages by incisively chopping away the deadwood of religious sophistry. In short, He was nothing like they expected – or wanted.

For this crime, they killed Him. The paragon of Justice, Rome, washed its hands of His blood. The religious perfectionists killed him for the reflection they saw in his life – and the inadequacy it displayed. It was all boringly typical. Everyone wants to be the perfect man. Everyone hates it when it is not themselves. One of those over-realistic touches. It wasn’t a great warrior that killed Him. It was an entrenched religious beauracracy, with no intention of recognizing a real spiritual revolution. It was an ennui-drenched provincial governor from the rulers of the known world that sneered “what is truth”, in the best philosophic tradition. It was the same crowd who shouted “Hosanna”, when they thought they were getting a King that shouted “crucify him” when He wasn’t at all what they expected.

Since that day it has never been quite enough to say
that God is in his heaven and all is right with the world, since the rumour that God
had left his heavens to set it right. – G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Islam is not like Christianity. It is a reversion back to a heresy of Judaism. It is a retelling of the Old Testament, impossible to both the Jews, and the Christians. It is the return to the harsh, uncompromising desert – and the only type of god that could be natural to the setting. It is local pantheism – sans the pantheon.

Islam returns to the harsh God of Battles – but, in Islam, there is not even the pretense of sacrifice. There is no grace – just law. There is harshness, there is ironshod rule – but there is no love of a God for His people. Especially not that of a Father for His sons. Islam is monotheistic – but it is the rule of a tyrant, not of the Father of a nation, who corrects those He loves. It is the despotic tyranny of the required – and contains none of the atonement. Only a promise of salvation should all the rules be adhered to. Steely-eyed fanaticism comes from those who truly think they must do great things to achieve salvation – not from those whose salvation is assured, and do out of love.

It is different – but not different enough. It is simply the same old formula – “do what god says, and you will be saved.” Christianity says “do what God says – because you love Him. You will be saved if you believe – because God loves you.” The two are not dependent. God died for us, and saved us – because He loves us. We do what he says, because it is good for us, and because He loves us, He wouldn’t steer us wrong. We love Him, because he loves us – thus, we do what He says.

In the pantheon, you propitiate the gods – or you don’t get what you want. You propitiate the gods – or you are squashed like a bug. You propitiate the gods, or they ignore you altogether. it is just the same tired formula. “Do what I say, and I will bless you. If I feel like it.”

Get the picture? There is no promise, there is no grace, there is no immutable love. There is only fear, and a monstrous quid pro quo. Do what the gods say, or. The formula applies, everywhere. That is the basis of all religion, save Christianity.

Christianity has an “or”, in a sense. The difference is, that “or” is universal. It is a fearful choice – a god which does not deserve, or inspire fear is no God at all. however, only His enemies fear Him. This God requires a choice: Accept my gift, or choose not to. If you choose not to accept that gift, the Justice of this God will fall upon all equally. For in His terms, there IS no righteousness, apart from Himself. There is only sin. He chose to pay the penalty for all of our sins. A refusal to accept that gift is simply the biggest slap in the face imaginable.

It is also choosing your own death sentence. This God tells us: “There is no other God before Me” – the same as Judaism’s God. Mostly, because it’s true. Secondarily, though, it is because anything else would be too terrifying. Man as God, Satan as God, or anything else as God is a fearful thought indeed. They all, sadly, will end up the same. In the grip of a Jealous, Omnipotent God.

Christianity: Set Apart

The world must be good and tired of Christianity by now. It seems virtually unkillable.

The Church has dealt impartially with heresies of every conceivable type – and has destroyed them all. It withstood myriad attacks from without, within, and from every possible direction – and still stands with head unbowed – in fact, it stands positively defiant.

This is after 2,000 years. It has been declared dead, time and time again. Even within the last century. With every death, not unlike it’s Founder, it simply rises again, and wades back into the struggle. It must be intensely frustrating.

I will content myself with a lengthy quote from Chesterton, that may shed a bit of light upon what set the Christians apart – both yesterday, and today.

Many moderns have insisted on the smallness of that Mediterranean world; and
the wider horizons that might have awaited it with the discovery of the other
continents. But this is an illusion, one of the many illusions of materialism. The
limits that paganism had reached in Europe were the limits of human existence;
at its best it had only reached the same limits anywhere else. The Roman stoics
did not need any Chinamen to teach them stoicism. The Pythagoreans did not
need any Hindus to teach them about recurrence or the simple life or the beauty
of being a vegetarian. In so far as they could get these things from the East, they
had already got rather too much of them from the East. The Syncretists were as
convinced as Theosophists that all religions are really the same. And how else
could they have extended philosophy merely by extending geography? It can
hardly be proposed that they should learn a purer religion from the Aztecs or sit
at the feet of the Incas of Peru. All the rest of the world was a welter of
barbarism. It is essential to recognise that the Roman Empire was recognised as
the highest achievement of the human race; and also as the broadest. A dreadful
secret seemed to be written as in obscure hieroglyphics across those mighty
works of marble and stone, those colossal amphitheatres and aqueducts. Man
could do no more.

For it was not the message blazed on the Babylonian wall, that one king was
found wanting or his one kingdom given to a stranger. It was no such good news as the news of invasion and conquest. There was nothing left that could conquer Rome; but there was also nothing left that could improve it. It was the strongest thing that was growing weak. It was the best thing that was going to the bad. It is necessary to insist again and again that many civilisations had met in one civilisation of the Mediterranean sea; that it was already universal with a stale and sterile universality. The peoples had pooled their resources and still there
was not enough. The empires had gone into partnership and they were still bankrupt. No philosopher who was really philosophical could think anything except that, in that central sea, the wave of the world had risen to its highest, seeming to touch the stars. But the wave was already stooping; for it was only the wave of the world.

That mythology and that philosophy into which paganism has already been analysed had thus both of them been drained most literally to the dregs. If with the multiplication of magic the third department, which we have called the demons, was even increasingly active, it was never anything but destructive. There remains only the fourth element or rather the first; that which had been in a sense forgotten because it was the first. I mean the primary and overpowering
yet impalpable impression that the universe after all has one origin and one aim; and because it has an aim must have an author. What became of this great truth in the background of men’s minds, at this time, it is perhaps more difficult to determine. Some of the Stoics undoubtedly saw it more and more clearly as the clouds of mythology cleared and thinned away; and great men among them did much even to the last to lay the foundations of a concept of the moral unity of the world. The Jews still held their secret certainty of it jealously behind high fences of exclusiveness; yet it is intensely characteristic of the society and the situation that some fashionable figures, especially fashionable ladies, actually embraced Judaism. But in the case of many others I fancy there entered at this point a new negation. Atheism became really possible in that abnormal time; for atheism is abnormality. It is not merely the denial of a dogma. It is the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul; the sense that there is a meaning and a
direction in the world it sees. Lucretius, the first evolutionist who endeavoured to substitute Evolution for God, had already dangled before men’s eyes his dance of glittering atoms, by which he conceived cosmos as created by chaos. But it was not his strong poetry or his sad philosophy, as I fancy, that made it possible for men to entertain such a vision. It was something in the sense of impotence and despair with which men shook their fists vainly at the stars, as they saw all the
best work of humanity sinking slowly and helplessly into a swamp. They could easily believe that even creation itself was not a creation but a perpetual fall, when they saw that the weightiest and worthiest of all human creations was falling by its own weight. They could fancy that all the stars were falling stars; and that the very pillars of their own solemn porticos were bowed under a sort of gradual deluge. To men in that mood there was a reason for atheism that is in some sense reasonable. Mythology might fade and philosophy might stiffen; but if behind these things there was a reality, surely that reality might have sustained things as they sank. There was no God; if there had been a God, surely this was the very moment when He would have moved and saved the world.

The life of the great civilisation went on with dreary industry and even with dreary festivity. It was the end of the world, and the worst of it was that it need never end. A convenient compromise had been made between all the multitudinous myths and religions of the Empire; that each group should worship freely and merely live a sort of official flourish of thanks to the tolerant Emperor, by tossing a little incense to him under his official title of Divus. Naturally there was no difficulty about that; or rather it was a long time before the world realised that
there ever had been even a trivial difficulty anywhere. The members of some Eastern sect or secret society or other seemed to have made a scene somewhere; nobody could imagine why. The incident occurred once or twice again and began to arouse irritation out of proportion to its insignificance. It was not exactly what these provincials said; though of course it sounded queer
enough. They seemed to be saying that God was dead and that they themselves had seen him die. This might be one of the many manias produced by the despair of the age; only they did not seem particularly despairing. They seem quite unnaturally joyful about it, and gave the reason that the death of God had allowed them to eat him and drink his blood. According to other accounts God was not exactly dead after all; there trailed through the bewildered imagination
some sort of fantastic procession of the funeral of God, at which the sun turned black, but which ended with the dead omnipotence breaking out of the tomb and rising again like the sun. But it was not the strange story to which anybody paid any particular attention; people in that world had seen queer religions enough to fill a madhouse. It was something in the tone of the madmen and their type of formation. They were a scratch company of barbarians and slaves and poor and unimportant people; but their formation was military; they moved together and were very absolute about who and what was really a part of their little system; and about what they said. However mildly, there was a ring like iron. Men used to many mythologies and moralities could make no analysis of the mystery, except the curious conjecture that they meant what they said. All attempts to make them see reason in the perfectly simple matter of the Emperor’s statue seemed to be spoken to deaf men. It was as if a new meteoric metal had fallen on the earth; it
was a difference of substance to the touch. Those who touched their foundation fancied they had struck a rock.

With a strange rapidity, like the changes of a dream, the proportions of things seemed to change in their presence. Before most men knew what had happened, these few men were palpably present. They were important enough to be ignored. People became suddenly silent about them and walked stiffly past them. We see a new scene, in which the world has drawn its skirts away from these men and women and they stand in the centre of a great space like lepers. The scene changes again and the great space where they stand is overhung on every side with a cloud of witnesses, interminable terraces full of faces looking down towards them intently; for strange things are happening to them. New tortures have been invented for the madmen who have brought good news. That sad and weary society seems almost to find a new energy in establishing its first religious persecution. Nobody yet knows very clearly why that level world has thus lost its balance about the people in its midst; but they stand unnaturally still while the arena and the world seem to revolve round them. And there shone on them in that dark hour a light that has never been darkened; a white fire clinging to that group like an unearthly phosphorescence, blazing its track through the twilights of history and confounding every effort to confound it with the mists of mythology and theory; that shaft of light or lightning by which the world itself has struck and isolated and crowned it; by which its own enemies have made it more illustrious and its own critics have made it more inexplicable; the halo of hatred
around the Church of God.

So it stands. What else is so divisive, so controversial? Never in human history has there ever been another such thing. The Church, and thus her Founder, have subjected the world to eternal war. This war is necessary, because it actually forces us to shake off our apathy. To actually, really choose this day whom we shall serve, to quote Joshua, the general of God.

That is the real question the Resurrection forces us to ask – and answer. “Do you serve You, or do you serve God? Choose.” It strips away all pretenses, reduces us to what we really are, and looks us directly in the eye.

It asks us, as Jesus asked. “Who do you say that I am?”

The Historic Church: Heresy

With the Resurrection, we have a movement to accompany it. A movement which actually moves. A movement which has moved, and keeps on moving, to spread its common direction throughout the entire world. A movement with such a pervasive influence cannot be ignored. It is a movement which has divided the history of the world in two – a movement which, to extend Chesterton’s metaphor, has become not just a crack in the pavement, but the fault line of history. It is a fault line which promises to provide another earthquake, and an earthquake the likes of which the world will, literally, never see again.

That earthquake is the promised Resurrection of the followers of this Jesus. The resurrection which hundreds of millions have placed their trust in, down through the centuries. That fault line – that belief in a literal, future resurrection, has caused thousands to give their lives in the advancement of this movement, has brought others to the ends of the earth in their attempts to spread it even further. It was the impetus that spurred mankind out of it’s sleepy, pantheistic stupor, and into the white-hot flames of passionate love for a God – a God who first loved them.

A movement that has grown, multiplied, sub-divided, and blossomed into a world-spanning belief system – with hundreds upon hundreds of millions of believers, at any given time. All of whom believe that they know, and have found, the only way to God. They would love to tell you about it. In fact – if you’re reading this, they probably already have.

Additionally, you have most likely either accepted it – or rejected it. There is a tendency to do this, as it is an exclusive claim. You either believe that it is the only way to God – or you do not. You choose, and it is decided in your mind.

Let us examine a few things, though. This exclusive claim excludes all other claims. It is a militant claim. Not militant, in the sense of “force of arms” – but militant in the sense of acceptance. It accepts no alternatives as valid. You are either with, or against. Jesus Himself said as much. It accepts no other definitions of truth, and wants none. from it’s very inception, it has been exclusive, exclusionary, and has rejected all other “alternatives”. Minor doctrinal points aside, there has never been an accepted variation on the basic creeds of Christianity, as derived from it’s Scriptures. The Apostles’ Creed makes a good example.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
    the Creator of heaven and earth,
    and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
    born of the Virgin Mary,
    suffered under Pontius Pilate,
    was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
    and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
    whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
    the communion of saints,
    the forgiveness of sins,
    the resurrection of the body,
    and life everlasting.

Amen.

The Church dealt with the Manicheans, the Gnostics, the Nestorians, the Arians, the Pelagians, and all of their ilk. It deals just as firmly with the liberal theology and higher criticism today. It denies those who deny the deity of Christ, the resurrection, and the inspiration of scripture. It deals a blow to the “Historic Jesus” as readily as it does to the Christian Humanist. it denies atheism as naturally as it denies paganism. It denies all else but Christianity.

Not all Christians do this; but those who don’t, we must say, are in error. As they have always been in error down throughout history. An exploration of the exploits of a Divus Caesar may be in order, should you doubt it. As would a look at the Athanasian Creed, which was the answer to them. Error has always been opposed. Look today, at the refusal to compromise doctrine, theology, or inspiration of the Scriptures, that we see in the battle between liberal and traditional theology. Look at who is consistently labeled as “intolerant”, or “fundamentalist”. The ones who refuse to compromise. Athanasius would be proud, brothers and sisters. Press on.

Resurrection: A Lever That HAS Moved the World

Christianity trumpets a wild, a seemingly illogical, and a longed-for hope. A hope echoed and sought for in every human breast. The desire to live forever. Not only does it not tie everything up in a neat little picture – it is not even *clean*. It is decidedly messy – much as life is. Watch The Passion, doubter. Call that neat and clean, if you will. That was the means to purchase our salvation. That was the means – the most messy and excruciating death possible.

The man thus brutally savaged and beaten as close as humanly possible to death, was then crucified. That same man was buried, that same man rose again, and appeared to the same men who fled in fear of their lives. Those same fearful, weak men… were the messengers of this Gospel. This Good News. That Life, in dying, has dealt a mortal wound to Death. Life, in dying, has been reborn – and will henceforth bring life to all who seek the reborn conqueror. The conqueror who did, as it was rumored, come down to set things right. the conqueror who was God Himself. God who died, and loved us enough to humble Himself – even unto death on a cross.

A more powerful message, and a more powerful bit of news has never, in the history of mankind, been told. It is this message, and this news, as Chesterton remarks, makes Christians, in all actuality, heralds. We give the news to all and sundry – “The King has set things right! Flock to His banner, and you will be His subjects. In setting things right, He will now grant you eternal life, in His kingdom, and under His rule. Come! Flock to His banner, loyal subjects. If you are not His yet – I beg you – come submit to Him. He will be as a father to you. He is to me!”

We are but humble heralds – but our message has, since it was first related, had the power to topple kingdoms, defy the edicts of kings, and, most importantly – change the world. We, as His messengers, have been changing the world, one new subject at a time, since He rose again. the world, since this first telling went out, in Acts, has never been the same again. It is as if the world had been shaken on it’s foundation, tilted to an impossible angle, turned upside down, and rattled to it’s very molten core.

May it ever be so – and may we always point the world to the true King – whose second coming will herald the final salvation and judgment of mankind. The Resurrection is the central core of Christianity, and it’s message of hope – of life – has forever changed the course of history, and of mankind.

The tomb still stands empty – and we still say: “He is risen! He is risen indeed!”