It’s a stubborn point, in fact, that Christians profess the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This story is so familiar to us that we can sometimes lose sight of how stunning it must have been for Jesus’ closest disciples to arrive at his burial place only to find an empty tomb. For, as the Gospel writer John points out, they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. Our Easter Gospel contains St. John’s magnificent account of the Resurrection. Bishop Robert Barron speaks to three key lessons that follow from the disquieting fact of the Resurrection. First, this world is not all there is. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead shows as definitively as possible that God is up to something greater than we had imagined. We don’t have to live as though death were our master and as though nihilism was the only coherent point of view. We can, in fact, begin to see this world as a place of gestation toward something higher, more permanent, more splendid. Second, the tyrants know that their time is up. Remember that the cross was Rome’s way of asserting its authority. But when Jesus was raised from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit, the first Christians knew that Caesar’s days were, in fact, numbered. The faculty lounge interpretation of the Resurrection as a subjective event or a mere symbol is exactly what the tyrants of the world want, for it poses no real threat to them. Third, the path of salvation has been opened to everyone. Jesus went all the way down, journeying into pain, despair, alienation, and even godforsakenness. He went as far as you can go away from the Father. Why? To reach all those who had wandered from God. Considering the Resurrection, the first Christians came to know that even as we run as fast as we can away from the Father, we are running into the arms of the Son. Jesus Christ invites each of us to new life. We begin by opening our hearts to him in the mystery of the Resurrection. Two thousand years later, there are many who, for whatever reasons, do not believe, they do not profess, and they do not yet recognize with the eyes of faith. But we, by virtue of our baptism, are called to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ, truly risen from the dead for the salvation of the world, to the world that still lives in darkness. Let us not domesticate these still-stunning lessons of the Resurrection. Rather, let us allow them to unnerve us, change us, and set us on fire.