Jimmy’s parents had never been very religious and hadn’t been in church for years, but now that their son was six years old, they thought that maybe he ought to get some exposure to religion. Easter Sunday seemed like a good time for that, so they had picked a nearby church and checked the service times in the paper the night before. They got dressed up, drove to the church and walked from the parking lot with the other holiday worshipers. Just before they got to the door Jimmy spotted a big sign on the lawn that said “He is Risen!” He looked at it for a moment, making use of his first-grade reading skills and then turned to mom and dad. “Who is risen?” he asked. His parents both opened and then closed their mouths and looked at each other helplessly.
An exaggeration? Maybe. Most adults in that situation would know that the sign referred to Jesus. But that answer would bring another six-year-old’s question, “Who’s Jesus?” And then the parents might be stumped again.
It makes a huge difference who it is that we believe has been raised from the dead. Many Jews in the time of Jesus believed that God would raise the dead at the end of the world’s history. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” Martha had said to Jesus at the grave of her brother Lazarus. So if someone has been raised from the dead now -- not just temporarily brought back to life but raised to a new kind of life so that “death has no more dominion over him” -- then the end of history has begun to break into our wo
