He Is Risen

"He is risen." 

"He is risen indeed!"

Those words are the traditional greeting and response on Easter morning. Just four different words, and three of them are used twice. Not language we might consider "churchy" but generally understood by people inside the church.  How would we explain them to people outside the church?

"He" refers to Jesus.  "Is risen" means risen from the dead. Not getting out of bed after a nap, or back on his feet after stumbling and falling to the ground, but a particular man, with a body that had been lifeless and laid in a tomb for two days, now being up, walking and breathing as if his death had never happened.  "Indeed," as an affirmation by a second person of the profound claim made by the first person.

Those may be the basic facts of the Easter greeting, but the greater question needing an answer is the "why" question. Why is Jesus risen from the dead?

The simple truth is that humans sin against God, in many ways, everyday.  Our sins are acts of disobedience and rebellion against the God who created us. Our sin is an offense against the holiness of God, and the justice of God cannot ignore it.  Punishment is deserved, and it will be given out.  Even the smallest of sins against a God who is holy demands a punishment that no single human could endure.

But God is not simply holy and just, he is also merciful. In his mercy he allows a substitute.  God understands much more fully than we do the impossibility of a created human being able to bear the full punishment of even one of their sins.  And so God, the Father, allows the punishment for our sin to be taken by his Son, Jesus.  Jesus lived a sinless human life, and it is this fact that allows him to take, and endure, the punishment that we cannot.

When we have faith in Jesus and what he came to do in laying his life down as our substitute, our first benefit is that all of our sin, every last bit, is removed.  Our second benefit is that we are clothed in his righteousness, meaning that from the viewpoint of God, no sin is seen when he looks at us, be he looking from a distance or very close up.  And being sinless means that we can be in his very presence, something we look forward to when this life is over.

The exchange of our sin for his righteousness is a wonderful thing.  We celebrate it on Easter, and we live in the truth of the resurrection every day.

"He is risen." 

"He is risen indeed!"