Happy Easter!  Christ IS Risen. Christ IS Risen, indeed.

 

Now, I’d like us to focus on the emphasis we place on that phrase.  I’d like to ask you to put the emphasis on the “IS”.  Like a young child admonishing her older brother about Santa Claus, and she proclaims “He really IS real!”  I want us to say it like we believe it.  To say it like we’re telling a world who might not believe us; who might consider it just an “idle tale” like they did to those women on that first Easter.  Christ IS Risen!  He IS risen, indeed!

 

You might see in some places people trying to correct it, and instead say, “Christ has Risen” or “Christ was Risen.”  But the Christian tradition of Easter is to put the emphasis on the IS…Christ IS Risen!  And it’s a pet peeve of mine to hear it any other way…Here’s why…

 

Tense matters.  Yes, the Resurrection of Jesus took place a couple thousand years ago, but is it an event that is stuck in the past?  No!  The Resurrection is a new state of being.  It is an ongoing event that has implications on life and love and human existence that is continually affecting us.  The Resurrection is a Present Reality, and we should speak like it.  Christ IS Risen!

 

Another reason is that “IS” is the nature of God!  God isn’t a God who is stuck in the past, and today is a today to encounter a God who is alive and active in our midst!  As the angels remind the women in the text from Luke, we don’t look for a living God among the dead; we look for a living God that IS alive, and IS active, and IS showing up and being who God IS.  And so, our God isn’t a God who “was” but rather, as John the Seer speaks of God in Revelation 1:8, ours is a God who IS…and WAS… and IS to Come!

 

The final reason I’ll give, to this little “Pet Peeve” of mine that emphasizes Christ IS Risen, (not Christ WAS Risen or HAS Risen) is that it speaks to me more truth about the Power of Love when we speak of it in the present.  Let me ask you, when we gather at the funeral of One we love, which rings more true to the Easter faith? He WAS such a great man?  Or He IS such a great man?  She WAS so well loved?  Or She IS so well loved?  That their life WAS a gift?  Or that their life IS a gift?  Even at the funeral, we proclaim that life IS living still!

 

            The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, that Love never ends.  And the Easter faith proclaims that Love never dies.  Yes, Christ IS Risen!  And because of this, death has no victory, and life and love live eternal. 

 

            Yes, what we say and how we say it still matters.  So join with me in the Easter proclamation.  And do so with emphasis. The world needs you to believe it, and to say it:   Christ IS Risen!  He IS risen, indeed!  Amen.