“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ² They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵ In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here; he has risen!’” (Luke 24:1-6, NIV) 

Many have written of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The words devoted to this event are probably only surpassed by the accounts of His death. In a sense this is unfortunate. It is not that his Passion should be trivialized. The story of the cross is the story of the ages, and without Good Friday there would be no Easter. Yet for all its meaning the physical death of Christ was not as singular an event as His triumph over it. All human beings die. Only one has returned to life…so far.

It is futile, in a sense, to try to capture the full import of the Resurrection in words. No matter how much is written on the subject we cannot but fall short in trying to comprehensively communicate its implications. What happened outside of Jerusalem in a rich man’s tomb on that morning in some sense also defies even full description.

Yet we who find our best form of expression in writing continue to try.

Many words come to mind when a believing heart considers Easter morning; strong words like victory, triumph and glory, softer ones like hope, joy and restoration. We think about a badly frightened, nearly despairing band of disciples suddenly being delivered from that fear, and threatening despair, by the One just delivered from death. Their experience reminds us of the moments when we too have been rescued from near hopelessness, rescued by the Spirit given us by Jesus after He went to be with His Father, and ours’.

We are also reminded of the coming of our own resurrection some day. The Easter story is one that tells us not only of something that happened in the past, but also is a guarantee of something yet to come. The raising of Christ guarantees the raising of His followers when God brings down the curtain on history as we know it. Easter is, in this sense, the ultimate prophetic event. For those living in a world still fallen it generates a hope so blessed that it too is beyond the expressive power of words. This is the hope that flows from contemplating the proverbial stone being rolled away from our own empty tombs someday. It is what enables us to go through the deepest of waters and come out unharmed on the banks of the other shore.

Maybe it is in starting with the word "hope" that we best find a place to honor the Resurrection to the extent it can be done so in writing. Christ-followers are people of hope. Our Savior has been called "the Blessed Hope", and we who know Him rejoice in the ultimate reality of that phrase and are reminded of its meaning. Resurrection Day, and all it implies, speaks to us of why we are who we are, and why we follow the One we follow.

The truth is that whether it is in one word or ten thousand we are forever just scratching the surface when we try to sum up the events of that morning in mere words. It is, in reality, too great to be fully known by any of our faculties. It is too wondrous to be grasped by any of the finite efforts of human beings.

Thanks be to God that what happened on Easter morning was for us, but fully capturing its glory remains beyond us.