Monday Invocation | Christ has Died, Christ is Risen

Christ has died.

For a moment, place yourself in the position of the disciples.

Just a week ago, you were still riding the high of Jesus’s triumphant procession into Jerusalem. The city hummed with energy in anticipation of the Passover, and the people were clamoring for the signs of the Messiah, God’s anointed, to lead them into liberation.

Yet it all changed in what felt like an instant.

Just a few days later, on a Friday like none other, you watched from a safe distance as your Teacher suffered a humiliating execution. Rather than securing liberation from the occupying power, Jesus was killed, his death cheered by the same crowds from whom you’d heard gleeful refrains of “Hosanna” on Sunday.

You felt the ground shake as he offered his final words, saw the sky darken, and watched him die. Jesus, your Teacher, friend, and your purpose for three years of your life was gone.

Saturday, the Sabbath, was heavy with grief.

But Sunday, word came from the women who had gone to the tomb of an unbelievable development: He was alive.

Christ is risen.

Like the disciples waking up to a new and unexpected world, we live in the light of the resurrection of Christ. God, incarnate in the flesh and blood of a Galilean Rabbi, subverted the oppression of death and paved a way for our ultimate liberation. Just as death came by way of humanity, as Paul says, life unending has come through Jesus, the Christ.

Like the tomb into which he was laid, death has been rendered impermanent. Its oppression has been reclaimed into our ultimate liberation.

Christ will come again.

And now, we look ahead to the coming kin-dom of the risen Christ. The prophet Isaiah bears witness to the promise of God’s new heavens and a new earth, describing it in detail:

… No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. (Isaiah 65:19-22 NRSV)

This new life looks like a world of endless joy, life, equity, and justice. In and through the resurrection of Christ, we have claimed this very promise.

May the story of resurrection, the story of Love conquering all, be at the heart of all we do.

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.