If you don’t believe in the resurrection…then what’s the point?  All of it…the birth of Jesus…the miracles…the healings…the sermon on the mount…and most certainly the Passion and Death on the Cross.  If you don’t believe in the resurrection…then what’s the point?  That’s why this day is so important to Christianity.  Pope Benedict…in his book Jesus of Nazareth…writes…the Christian faith stands or falls with the truth of the testimony that Christ is risen from the dead.
 
If he didn’t rise from the dead…what would we do with the gospels and all that they tell?  The stories would just become a collection of interesting ideas about God and humanity…good ideas…helpful ideas…things that certainly can be seen in the lives of people like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. or even someone like Socrates (who basically believed everything about God short of saying explicitly that he actually believed in God).  If there is no resurrection than all of this morphs into an operations manual for making good choices and fulfilling obligations…a sort of religious word view…which again isn’t entirely without value.  We need programs for goodness and kindness and love.   But again…if there is no resurrection then Jesus falls into line with the rest of the great religious leaders and philosophical thinkers in human history.   He would remain purely human and as such his reach into our souls would only be able to go so deep and we would be left ultimately alone among one another struggling to find meaning for life.    But that’s not what the Resurrection is about. 

The fact is…and it’s not just pious blind faith either because there are eye witness accounts in multiple sources including the gospels and the rest of the New Testament…the fact is…he did resurrect and that makes all the difference.  The most amazing thing is that with his Resurrection an entirely new reality is made available to humanity.
 
This new reality pulls from a number of places actually in the Old and New Testaments, like Exodus.  Moses on the mountain comes upon a bush on fire but not being consumed.  Out of the bush a voice calls out Moses.  Moses asks who are you…the voice simply responds I AM.  At first bizarre but the more we consider it…quite profound.  I AM means that God isn’t the biggest…the smartest…the oldest BEING…God isn’t a being…I AM means that God IS being itself.  God gives rise to all that is.  Genesis…how does God create…He speaks.  Let there be light…let there be the heavens and the earth…let there be the land and the sea…let there be people.  The Word speaks and what he speaks simply becomes.  The Gospel of John…In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…all that is was created through the Word.  There’s other proofs too.  The Raising of Lazarus…it’s as if that first moment of the Word speaking is merged with a new moment where the Word speaks…come out Lazarus…and he comes out.   The Word speaks to the crippled man…get up…and he gets up.  The Word tells demons to get out…and they get out.  Now…this Resurrection Sunday…the Word speaks to itself and all of time comes into a oneness with that Word.   The Word gives rise again to itself as The Word made flesh destroys death in the Resurrection. 

All of this is meant to give rise in our minds and hearts a new reality…a reality beyond time and space…a reality that God IS above all else.  Pope Benedict put it perfectly…Whether Jesus merely was or whether he is...finds its answer in the moment of the Resurrection.   That Easter morning two thousand years ago…the social gospel…the healing gospel…the miraculous gospel was thrust into the realm of was and is.   And this is how we come to know that the Eucharist…Holy Communion…the event that will happen on this Altar in 10 minutes…brings all of time and space into a oneness where was and is bleeds together into what we call the eternal present. 

That morning of the Resurrection is far more than just a man being magically resuscitated…the morning of the Resurrection is what gives meaning all that is…so that all of this…you…your very existence…me and my existence…Deacon Dave…Belton…Texas…the USA…the entire world…the resurrection means that you and me mean something…that we’re not merely accidents. 

Pope Benedict concludes…it’s only if Jesus resurrects that anything new can really happen…he’s the only Word that can make new realities because he made reality itself.  In the resurrection God changes the world and the situation for humanity.  In the resurrection God finally becomes the objective standard on which humankind can rely.  Because it’s in the resurrection that God has most completely revealed himself.