Matthew 28:6b- he has risen, just as he said.

A one time popular Christian TV personality once told a TV audience: “The Christian life is just so great that I think I would become a Christian even if it wasn’t true!”1 Tim Keller says, “As a young Christian, I had come up through mainline churches, I was a religion major at a secular university. The common message he got about the stories of the resurrection was that they “were literalistic, symbolic representations of these higher spiritual truths.”

And then I read what the Apostle Paul wrote: “If Christ is not risen…your faith is useless.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is greatest event in human history. It is in fact the hinge; it is the pillar on which our faith stands.

We have just celebrated Easter and read that story again with wonder and amazement. There is a little detail that we might easily overlook—an idea repeated in 3 of the 4 gospels. The angel said to the women, “He has risen, JUST AS HE SAID.” One of the great stories in baseball history is Babe Ruth’s “calling” a home run before he hit it. It’s one thing to be able to hit a home run, it’s quite another to be able to tell when.

All the way back to the early days of Genesis when God promised a son to the old man and woman—Abraham and Sarah, we find an emphasis on the fact—He did what he said:

Gen. 21:1-2 “Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.”

“He has risen, just as he said.” He called the shot! It has all happened/is happening as a fulfillment of Jesus’ words. Do you realize the importance of that? If God can deliver on that promise, the rest is “a piece of cake.”

Even his enemies remembered he had said that. They tried to make sure it didn’t happen. They knew that if the people believed he rose “the jig was up.” The enemy of our souls knows that too. His only hope is to convince us it didn’t happen, or failing that, to lull us to sleep as to its meaning.

We live on the basis of promise. Jesus’ word is where our faith rests. It’s not only what happened, but what will happen. It’s all about trust. Can you trust Jesus/God? Is his word good?

It’s just like He said. At every step of the way in human history, when God has spoken/promised we have found it just like he told us. To Death, To Satan, to all the forces of evil—Jesus’ enemies, it’s Easter—”the jig is up.”

1Quoted by Philip Yancey

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