“He is risen!”
This was a vital greeting to early Christians. Vital as in “essential,” but also alive, energizing, inspiring. The expected response to the greeting was, “He is risen indeed!” This celebrated the history-altering fact that the inspired teacher and healer Jesus Christ, who had been so unjustly crucified, rose up alive just as he had promised.
In their own way, his early followers had also risen. Their understanding of what he had taught them was elevated by the outcome of the Master’s supreme self-sacrifice, which evidenced to them—and, by their subsequent testimony to it, all—the fullness of the divine Sonship he was appointed to exemplify. Through his limitless love of the Father, God, he willingly submitted to the cross, and won victory over death. He showed that life isn’t the mortal existence it seems to be, but the endless experience and expression of immortal Life, God.
