Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! This is the good news. This is the life-changing, earth-shattering good news, the gospel message to be proclaimed to all the world.
In the beginning, God, who is a person, God, not some cosmic force or natural process, but the God who Is, and is Love itself, created us. He crafted the entirety of the created order, made all things good, diffusing his own goodness into his creation. He made man and woman, giving them life together so they could reflect and manifest his loving nature by being in relationship with each other and with him. He walked with them, the author of life in their midst, and in defiance they chose death.
Death entered the world. This mysterious thing, this fearful, inescapable reality that we could not comprehend. Death was the one unavoidable enemy that was always ultimately victorious. It was unnatural and inevitable.
But God did not create us to be ruled over by death. He did not make us to live in fear. Our defiance did not diminish his love for us, and he did not abandon us to the kingdom of death.
No. He came himself to rescue us, to give us a way back into Life. He became man while remaining God. Jesus, the Incarnation, was subject to death in his human nature and so he died. He truly died, was hidden away in a tomb, and creation mourned. But, in his divine nature he is Life, and death, which is a deprivation, could not overcome the fullness of his being. Therefore, Jesus rose to new life. In his resurrection he defeated death, the one enemy that has always conquered was now itself conquered. Though still inevitable, it is no longer fearful, for it has lost the power of finality. Death is no longer the end.
Life has defeated death! Love has proved itself stronger than fear, casting it out, dispelling gloom, restoring hope to exiles far from the home we long for. It is Easter and we are called to rejoice, to joyously, boldly proclaim the good news. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!
Prose for the sake of Poetry 