He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

I don’t have to tell you who the pronoun “He” is referring to in those traditional Easter acclamations. You know His name. He’s Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He was dead and is now alive, owning the name that is above every name. Every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth will one day bow in absolute reverence to this name, whether it’s the knee of a believer or unbeliever, friend or foe (Philippians 2:9-10).

This cosmos-encompassing event Saint Paul describes will happen in the flesh. The Lord’s resurrection has sealed its certainty (Job 19-25-27; 1 Corinthians 15:42-56). This final veneration will not be a commemorative act, one performed in memory of an exceptional individual who once was but is no more. It won’t be an act of devotion recalling a person indispensable to history but nevertheless long dead and buried. Graveyards are filled with the forgotten. Even the greatest are little more than “comets of a season,” Lord Byron would say. “The glory and then nothing of a name.”

And yet, Jesus, the One bearing the name above all names, His grave was a blink. He could not own one for long. Although I suppose if owning the grave means besting the sinister powers of sin and death that give a grave its claim, He certainly holds these powers’ enduring titles (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). He owns them as a superior champion owns a weaker opponent. They came for Him. They were strong. But they approached Him in bold assumption and were met by an ugly fact. “No one takes my life from me,” Jesus said, “but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). “Now is the judgment of this world,” the Lord added, “now will the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). Indeed, and amen! His resurrection is the proof that His words were not empty. He’s alive, and if this is true, then even these darkly powers will be forced to their knees at this world’s final hour. They will coalesce from their formlessness in humble reverence for the One who is no longer the suffering servant but the Pantocrator—the ruler of all things created and uncreated.

Admittedly, the Lord’s work was not easy. The combat was stupendous, just as the lovely Victimae Paschali sings (LSB 460). But the good news remains as plainly splendid as it is plentiful. His foes were too weak. They lost everything, and their consequence was sealed for the great and final day.

In the meantime of eternity, to the victor goes the spoils. Among the prizes, to the Champion the most precious: us! He won us! And now, by the power of the Holy Spirit for faith, to be with Jesus is a believer’s forever. The grave is not our end. He filled in its gaping chasm. The devil cannot accuse us. He has been debarked. Death cannot consume us. It was defanged. And now, we are the Lord’s own, and we will be raised and adorned in bodies “like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21)!

Immersed in this joyful news, may your celebration of Easter be wonderfully full-throated as you call out to this conquered and whimpering world, “He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!”