Every day we are aware that life comes and goes. We watch as life flourishes before our eyes and then as it is swept away in tides of death. We observe this cycle as it occurs over and over again, always knowing in the back of our minds that one day we too will succumb to the very cycle that made our lives possible. It is this ever-present reality of death that forces us to reflect on life’s meaning. For thousands of generations, humans have gazed into the sky and asked, “Why? Why do we exist? Why are we here?” We have explored the world around us and asked, “What? What is my purpose? What is my meaning?” We have peered inside of our own hearts and asked, “Who? Who am I and who have I become?”

Though these questions vex us and the answers seem elusive, each generation comes to a similar conclusion. There is something greater than us. Something beyond us. Something that is responsible for this physical world in which we live. And if we can connect with that force, with that being that exists within and beyond everything, then we will have found our way home.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

It seems that our species has always possessed a disposition to believe in a higher being. From the moment we were able to recognize our own mortality, we started believing in God. Even today, in spite of our rational, logical, science driven minds, humans overwhelmingly believe that there is a deity at the center of all existence. Humans have various ways of explaining who God is, but our way, the Christian way, goes back more than 2000 years and centers around a man named Jesus of Nazareth.

It is believed by those in the Christian faith that this man, this Jesus of Nazareth, did something that no living creature has ever done. It is believed that Jesus was able to overcome the natural cycle of life and death. It is believed that for a moment in time the laws of the universe were suspended, and his body, which had been tossed into the grave, was brought back to life by God. This event, this moment in time, this singularity is called the resurrection and it is the foundation that explains everything Christians believe about God.

If God is one who created the singularity, if God is the one who started the natural cycle of life and death within the universe, then it is the singularity of God bringing Jesus back from the dead that gives us hope that this cycle can be broken. All humans are aware that the force that brought them into the world is the same force that will remove them from it. But Christianity offers the hope that the cycle of life and death is not fixed; that there is a part of us that can rise from the ashes; a part of us that can never be destroyed; a part of us that can be resurrected.

Many of us believe that the resurrection is an event that will happen sometime in the future. Indeed, Christians often speak of the resurrection as a promise from God that what happened to Jesus will happen to us. But what if the resurrection is not in the future? What if the resurrection is now? What if that part of us that can never be destroyed has the ability to bring you back to life now?

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

This is some of the earliest motion picture footage that exists, taken by the Lumiere brothers between 1896 and 1900. All these people who you see are no more. They passed away many years ago. Some died in the great wars. Some died from old age. Others from disease. And still others from hardship. They were once people who were living their lives very much like you. They had families. They had hopes and dreams. They had people who loved them. People who waited for them. People who were disappointed by them.

Like you, they struggled to make sense of the world. They struggled to understand why life is filled with so much joy, and yet, at the same time, so much sorrow. Like you, they tried to hold onto to those moments that were meaningful. They tried to remember their first love. Their first kiss. The first time their child took a step and said, “I love you.” Like you, they lost track of time. Like you, they were more worried about trivial concerns than those things that really mattered. Like you, they blinked and their life had passed them by, wondering, “Where did it all go?”

For many of these people this is probably the only record of their existence. They had no idea that, in this brief instance, their lives were being recorded. They are like ghosts, walking through a past that no longer exists. When people were first introduced to motion pictures, they called the movie theaters dream houses because watching the movies reminded them of being in a dream. And yet, I think our lives are very much like dreams. One moment, everything can seem so real, so tangible, and then the next moment, everything has changed and nothing is the way that it was.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said that what is sad about human life is that so many people live out their lives in quiet lostness. He described people as having this quality of living away from themselves, never fully engaged, never fully aware of the world in which they live. Their presence is as meaningless as their absence and when their lives are over, they vanish like shadows. Indeed, if you look in the mirror and peer deep into your own eyes, you might just recognize that lost shadow who has been silently, quietly, wandering through life.

“Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

We are a people in need of resurrection. We are people who are adrift, lost in this sea of shadows that we call life. And that is why we have come here today; that is why we spend time talking about Jesus’ resurrection because all of us need to be brought back to life. Jesus’ story of death and resurrection is a message of hope for us. A message that God wants more for us than to simply live and die in this endless cycle of life. God wants for us to truly live. God wants for us to be a resurrected people with new life, new purpose and new meaning. God wants for us to be like Jesus.

You see, Jesus lays out for us the roadmap to finding resurrected life. One must be willing to sacrifice himself in order to be reborn anew. One must be willing to die to become a new person. But the sacrifice of self is not easy. We must be willing to abandon our selfish ambitions in favor of selfless love. In order to do that, we must be willing to step off the carousel; we must be willing to embrace the belief that there is more to life than what we see in front of us; we must be willing to allow God’s love into our hearts so that we can truly live, rather than only living to die.

With each new person who finds resurrected life, it brings the human race one step closer to redemption. Over time, as more and more people step off the carousel to embrace selfless love, the vision of Jesus’ world will become a reality. The hungry will find food. The sick will find healing. The lonely will find companionship and the desperate will find hope. Together, we will slowly change the trajectory of our evolution. Each new generation will produce more and more people who are willing to embrace the resurrected life, until one day, all people will know the meaning of selfless love.

The resurrected life is waiting for you. Are you ready to step off the carousel?