Jesus is risen! Who cares?

How is Easter related to anything?  All of our churches hype it up.  Yes, Jesus is risen!  Who cares?!!  There are a ton of reasons to care and a ton of reasons that my life and your life is/can be different because of what happened on the first Easter.

We are people who want to run away.  We are afraid, afraid of life, afraid of death, afraid of what

others will think, afraid we won’t make it through stuff, afraid we’ll be found out.  And we are shamed.  We are ashamed of who we are, of how we feel, of how we’ve failed, of what we’re really like, of what we’re not, of things we can’t change. 

But on Easter, we see there was the One who knows every last detail of our lives and still dies for our love, who then shows that what happened to Him will happen to us: we WILL make it through, we WILL be loved, we WILL conquer those things that seem to say “the end.” 

Easter is a forward-looking event.  It speaks to the past and the present and says, “The story isn’t finished.  In fact, it is just beginning!”  Death will not have the last say.  Death of your dreams will not have the last say.  The anxiety and worry you feel will not have the last say.  The depression you’re under right now will not have the last say.  The pain of loss you’re feeling will not have the last say. 

We love a God of resurrection-One brings things, not just back to life, but a new kind of life.  When Jesus rose from the dead, he was still Jesus, but He was different.  He walked through walls, appeared and disappeared, and yet was still Himself. 

He doesn’t just fix things in life, he resurrects them-changes them-makes them even more meaningful than they were before.