What changed?

The stone was moved.
The burial shroud of Jesus
     was still wound up
     and discarded in an empty tomb.
And angels,
I imagine the very same ones
who announced to the shepherds,
            "He is here!"
now proclaimed,
"He is not here,
for He has risen,
             as He said."
We can read the Scripture accounts
     of what happened that Easter morning.
But there is even greater
         evidence of the Resurrection.
For behind locked doors,
   His disciples cowered in fear.
All was lost.
Jesus was not
     who they thought He was,
a political figure to overthrow the Romans.
Indeed,
        Jesus was not that at all.
Jesus came
         to overthrow sin.
People wanted a Messiah
    to rise up against political oppression,
and instead,
           Jesus rose from the dead,
delivering us from the oppression of sin.
Jesus did not proclaim political overthrow,
   but called for personal repentance,
an infinitely greater victory dance.

And therein lies
the most vivid proof of the Resurrection:
          the changed lives of His disciples.
They were transformed from cowards
                into martyrs.
No man willingly dies
for what he knows to be a lie.
But the truth of the Resurrection
                changed them completely.
Jesus was who He said He was
                                    after all.
And He proved it by doing the impossible,
            by defeating death.
And that changed everything.

The greatest proof of the Resurrection
was changed lives.

It still is.

Be proof.
Let the reality of the Resurrection
       be manifest in you.

Joyous Easter,
     in all you do and say,
in work,
and relationships,
and life,
not on a holiday in April,
but every day of the year.