BY REV. DR. VAHAN H. TOOTIKIAN
Easter is the greatest celebration of all church festivals because it commemorates the most important story of the Christian Gospel, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That event has made a tremendous difference throughout the centuries. It has completely transformed the lives of people.
The Resurrection of Christ also significantly impacted the lives of his disciples. After the crucifixion, the disciples were thoroughly beaten people. Overpowering sadness had created in them weakness, cowardice, hopelessness and despair. They went into hiding lest those who had done away with Christ should find them and do the same.
Then, on the first Easter, something happened! the disciples’ overpowering sadness gave way to overpowering joy, and that joy gave birth in them a powerful strength, courage, confidence and boldness. Within six weeks, the Gospel of Christ was being preached fearlessly and effectively by men transformed from slinking cowards into valiant crusaders.
No illusion transformed the disciples from fearful, hiding refugees to courageous, outspoken, fearless witnesses. No mass hypnosis started the Christian Church on its way and maintains it to this day. The only thing which convinced the disciples was the experience for themselves of being in the presence of the same Jesus they had known before the crucifixion.
If the story of Jesus had ended on Friday with His death on the cross and His burial in the tomb, the story of Jesus would have ended there for all times. St. Paul was right when he wrote, “If Christ was not raised from the dead, and our preaching is in vain.” But if Christ had not been raised from the dead, not only would the preaching have been in vain, but also there would have been no preaching and witnessing at all. The disciples convinced that the crucifixion had ended their dreams and hopes, had already begun to turn to other things. The change that occurred in them is totally inexplicable apart from the reality of the Resurrection. Without the Resurrection’s reality, there would have been no Christian movement, no New Testament, no celebration of the first day of the week, no transformed lives.
Easter also made another important difference in that it assured the survival and the empowering of the Christian faith as a way of life for people of all succeeding generations. Without the Resurrection, Christianity would be a museum piece. Easter has made, and still makes, a tremendous difference.
Moreover, the Resurrection of Christ came to validate the truth that the ultimate purposes of God cannot be destroyed by evil forces. It asserted the fact that evil men do not have the last word; that righteousness, though crucified, lives to speak the last word.
Easter has been very dear to the hearts of the Armenian people because Armenians are living witnesses of the power of Christ’s Resurrection in their lives. From 1915 to 1923, one and a half million Armenians were destroyed by the Young Turk leaders of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians worldwide have been honoring the memory of their martyrs who carried their cross and later witnessed the glorious Resurrection. Armed and fortified by the power of the Resurrection, the survivors of the Armenian Genocide were able to experience rebirth and renewal. Indeed three years after the 1915 Genocide, the heroic Armenian people, by the grace of God, were able to create a free and independent state on its historic land, which laid the foundation for the present Republic of Armenia.
The Genocide did not paralyze the creative forces of the Armenian people, for the scattered remnants of the Armenian nation did achieve new life both in Armenia and in the Diaspora. Today, Armenians stand with their heads held high to face the future with hope, demanding justice and struggling for Genocide recognition and reparations.
The affirmation that Christ is risen from the dead is the center of Christian theology. There is no question about the tremendous difference it has made and still makes in peoples’ lives. The challenge for each of us is to live in the power of that assertion.
May the hope, grace and blessing of the Resurrection be with us and the world today and forever.
Christ is risen from the dead. Blessed is the Resurrection of Christ.
Rev. Dr. Vahan H. Tootikian is the Minister Emeritus of the Armenian Congregational Church of Greater Detroit and the Executive Director of the Armenian Evangelical World Council.
