three words
Christian Ray Flores here, getting ready to immerse in the magic and tragic world of south eastern Africa.
For those of you who have generously given toward the Ascend Academy in Maputo - from the bottom of my heart - thank you! If you missed that post and may be willing to donate any amount, here’s the link to the post in more detail.
three words
I’m writing this on Easter Morning. Three words are proclaimed on this day all over the world that go beyond tradition, religion, to a core human tension. Our mortality.
My girls are all grown and still insist on coloring eggs every year and doing the traditional egg hunt. The eggs on Easter thing has a fun back story.
Persians, Egyptians, and Romans were already trading eggs every spring long before Christianity arrived — drawn to the same quiet magic of life coiled inside something that does not look alive. Early Christians simply recognized a good metaphor when they saw one, the cracked shell mapping perfectly onto resurrection, the empty tomb.
The medieval contribution was more practical. Lent forbade eggs for forty days, but hens didn’t get the memo and kept laying eggs. By Easter Sunday the surplus was staggering, and so the faithful feasted because nobody knew what else to do with all the eggs.
For centuries now - those of us in the Christian faith have an Easter greeting and response that I love deeply. The greeting is just three words: He is Risen!
The response is: He is Risen Indeed! ( or Truly He is Risen!)
It breaks open a core human tension. The fleeting nature of our earthly existence and the finality of death. This simple greeting is a reflection of a life lived with a different perspective on the whole affair.
They say the most dangerous man is one who has nothing to lose. But I’d argue the truly dangerous one — dangerous to fear, to smallness, to a life half-lived — is the person who has nothing to gain. Because they already know the story ends in victory.
This victorious mindset — rooted in your unsurpassed worth and the conviction that what you do in this life echoes in eternity — changes how you live day by day. It infuses us with a spirit to face the mundane daily frustrations and endless obstacles with relentless and joyful optimism.
Happy Easter.
And may you get one step closer to becoming that truly dangerous person — the one with nothing to gain, because the ultimate victory has already been won.
He is Risen!