A Resurrected Greeting

A Resurrected Greeting

Romans 6:4

America is one of the few countries where the customary greeting for Easter has absolutely no connection to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What we hear is “Happy Easter.” But this is not how the church has greeted one another in times past. The early church would greet one another saying, “Christ is risen,” and the response was, “He has risen indeed.”

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

In the first couple of centuries, the church would say, “He lives.”

And in truth, this should be our greeting all the time, because this is our hope and the hope of the world.

You see, Easter has absolutely no connection to the empty tomb and the resurrection miracle. Originally, Easter was a pagan celebration of renewal and rebirth and was celebrated around this same time in England. It honored the Saxon goddess ‘Eastre,’ the mother goddess. But when Christian missionaries converted the Saxons to Christianity, this pagan celebration was merged into the Christian holy day when we celebrate the empty tomb and Jesus rising from the dead.

And so, while it never used to be this way, America soon went the way of the pagan holiday, where today it’s about an Easter Bunny that lays eggs. And so, what we might say is that Easter, or the day we are supposed to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus has gotten a little bit fuzzy in the minds of many.

And so, instead of greeting one another with Happy Easter, which has gotten to be ingrained with so many, we need to resurrect the traditional Christian greeting, “Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!”

And even more, our conversations need to move from Easter brunch, and Easter hats, and all the holiday programing that is on TV, and instead we should be promoting that Jesus Christ is no longer dead, that He lives, that He has risen and is alive.

And this is not only what we need to hear, but it is also something we need to be saying. And what this greeting means is that Jesus is God’s Son and the world’s Savior, and He has defeated sin and death for all time.

Therefore, “Christ is Risen! He has Risen Indeed.”

But if there were one verse that I could choose that speaks to this greeting, besides the angel’s greeting to the women saying, “He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” (Matthew 28:6), it would be found in what the Apostle Paul said.

“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4b NKJV)

What then is the truth behind these words that Paul pronounced, “Christ was raised from the dead?” What is the truth that allows us to make this proclamation that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is alive?

What I have found interesting is that throughout the entirety of the New Testament we find absolutely no lengthy debate or defense given for this proclamation. The fact that Jesus on the third day rose from the dead was accepted by all as the truth. This, you might say, is the capstone, the cornerstone of our faith.

And the Apostle Paul kind of put the capper on this. He said, “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ … For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” (1 Corinthians 15:14-18 NKJV)

Now, Paul is not defending the resurrection, he was simply speaking about its truthfulness.

Unfortunately, many today don’t take the time or the energy to check it out for themselves. Instead, they come with their minds already made up having listened to the critics and not checking their stories or their “speaking points.”

One such person who checked it out was Josh McDowell. As a pre-law student he considered himself as an agnostic and believed that Christianity was worthless. However, when challenged by Christians there on campus to prove them wrong, he undertook the challenge. Through his study he found overwhelming evidence for the Christian faith. He studied the documents and found that the Old and New Testament were the most reliable writings in antiquity.

When asked why he couldn’t disprove Christianity, he responded, “For the simple reason that I was unable to explain away the fact that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a real event in history.”