The Difference Easter Makes
Do you know the name Dan Jenkins? Great journalist! When asked what he wanted on his tombstone, he shot back, “I knew this would happen.”
We all know it will happen… we just don’t know when; we feel the timer ticking but we’re not sure where we are in the countdown and we’d prefer to avoid thinking about it.
In the Rome of Paul’s time, the average life expectancy was 21. While the average Roman thought about death and the continuing existence of the soul, there were Jews who had a hope for something far greater: resurrection.
Resurrection wasn’t about life after life, it was about the restoration of everything death had taken from humanity, physically and spiritually… bodily resurrection, creation restored, the soul made perfect in communion with God. That future, some believed, had invaded the present in the resurrection from the dead of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified under the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate. That resurrection was the hinge of history. It changed everything for everyone everywhere
Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote, “It was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted His followers out of the despair into which His death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation of the movement begun by Him. But for their profound belief that the Crucified had risen from the dead and that they had seen Him and talked with Him, the death of Jesus and even Jesus Himself would probably have been all but forgotten.”
Have you ever heard of Simon of Peraea? Judas bar Hezekiah? Simon bar Kochba They claimed to be the Messiah, just as Jesus did. The Romans killed them too. Here’s the difference: They stayed dead.
That’s why you haven’t heard of them. But Jesus?
Thomas Cahill observed, “history is…the narrative of grace, the recounting of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else…” and nothing any of us could or can ever do will come close to what Jesus did in his death and resurrection. Its not that there’s simply no greater narrative of grace, its that all other such narratives spring from this one. Easter changes everything.
What difference does Easter make?
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead doesn’t just open up the realm of the eternal to us, answering our most profound questions. It also changed the mundane.
Rhythms of Rest -
The Romans had months, but not weeks; they didn’t have a weekend; they had holidays but no regular rest… Friday-Sunday as a rhythm is something you owe to Jesus.
Beauty
Every statue and brush stroke from Michelangelo
Every painting by Rembrandt
Every counter-punctual note composed by Bach
Education Patrick and the Legacy of the Irish Monks
When the Rhine froze on the last day of December 406, Alaric and the Visigoths brought their violence, lawlessness, slavery, famine, and loss of learning and libraries to Europe. A real dark age took hold. Barbarized Europe was recovered by the intellectual Irish Monks, the sons of Patrick and Columba, who came to hit reset on civilization.
A Changed Life -
Consider the story of a young, bitter, and dissolute agnostic, born with poor eyesight and then blinded by an accident in a school yard. He said, “When I was young, being an agnostic seemed like a comfortable position for me to embrace,” he said. Before discovering his faith, he did what many people do, especially when they meet with success in the entertainment industry, as he did: he lived a somewhat dissolute life. He indulged in excesses in order to fill what he calls the “missing part of myself.” Despite his success, “there was still unrest. Every evening, you have to reach your goals. When you don’t, you feel bad. Success makes everything easier, but in the end, you find yourself with your hands empty, and you feel like you are sinking into a whirlpool of vice….living in despair...” That was vocalist Andrea Bocelli.
Yes, Jesus was crucified, but the cross would be nothing more than a museum piece but for one reason… Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again.
“But the world is an ugly place at times, Pastor.” I know!
When I see the darkness around and within, I remember the realism of Sheriff Bell in Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men.”
“I wake up sometimes way in the night and I know as certain as death that there ain’t nothin short of the second comin’ of Christ that can slow this train.”
Yes, death is a dread enemy, “the last enemy,” Paul calls it. It’s a vicious totalitarian, and as Hamilton reminds us, “Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes…” (Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda).
That duly noted, death, like every other tyrant, eventually falls.
The downfall is well underway. Death took Jesus, but like Jonah’s great fish, death gave him back...it spat him out to stand up and tell us all it’s time to come home to the life we were meant to have in communion with him. It’s why we can all sing -
Behold him there! The Risen Lamb, my perfect spotless righteousness / The great unchangeable I AM, the King of Glory and of Grace.
As we gather for a family picture this week, or feast with others, or simply offer a “Happy Easter” to a friend, remember the history-quaking, death-shattering reality of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ Resurrection Speaks to our…
Deepest Question (what’s next?) - 1 Cor 15:31-32, 51-54
“We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed... the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed… ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’”
What’s next? Hope. Renewal. Resurrection. Because of Easter, your story doesn’t end in a hospital room. It doesn’t end in the ground. It ends in glory.
I’m often asked for advice about places to see in London… maybe a good pub that isn’t in a travel guide, or the best time to visit Westminster Abbey. I’ve even been asked for contacts in the House of Lords (Sorry, kids, no help there). People ask because they know I know, not because I read it online, but because it was my home for many years. I’ve been there.
That’s why you can trust Jesus when it comes to sin and death.
There isn’t a temptation we face that he didn’t know.
There isn’t a sin that shocks him or lies outside the reach of his mercy
There isn’t a corridor of death unconquered by his power.
If you want the answers to the journey into eternity…he has them.
Deepest Fear (death itself) - Hebrews 2:14-15 - “by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Easter means you don’t have to be ruled by fear.
Dan Jenkins was right. He knew death would happen…and it did. But God knew it before Dan knew it and provided the answer to its dark grip on our hearts through the death and resurrection of Jesus. You can place your past, present, and future - your immortal, everlasting future- in his nail-scarred, gracious hands.
Deepest Need (forgiveness) - 1 Corinthians 15:16-18, 22 “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins... but in Christ all will be made alive.”
Forgiveness isn’t just a feeling. It’s not a vague hope that God shrugs at sin. The cross is the load-bearing capacity of God’s mercy.. The cross has that power because Christ’s tomb is empty. You are no longer defined by your worst moments. You’re not locked in by guilt. Jesus didn’t just pay the price—he walked out of the tomb with the receipts.
Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, so we can rise to life on the last day of history. The future has invaded the present and vanquished the past. It’s time to celebrate.
Christ is Risen… He is Risen Indeed!