On Sign Language

On Sign Language

During Holy Week, two particular signs caught my eye. Both bore changeable letters, and both carried seasonal messages. The first sign was outside a nursery and greenhouse and said simply “He is risen.” Its unembellished statement of truth was a bit surprising; after all, there is nothing overtly religious about the nursery business. In fact, in a multicultural city like mine, such words were sure to offend at least a few potential plant buyers.

Within yards of that sign, another outside a jewelry store said “Buy a carat for some bunny you love.” It took me a second or two to register the pun, but the proximity of the two signs and their widely divergent messages struck me as a perfect picture of the world we live in.

On the one hand, God’s truth still breaks through the clutter in straightforward ways. On the other, we humans exhibit a stunning ability to trivialize the holy and make light of weighty things. (Is Easter really a big time for diamonds?) The two signs were almost the same size and even looked similar. But their sentiments could not have been further apart.

One was selling something. The other meant to give something away.

“He is risen” may be one message among the hundreds of thousands in the marketplace, but it is the message that changes everything. “He is risen” means that death is not the last word—and what seems like the end isn’t. “He is risen” means that hope is not audacious . . . it’s entirely reasonable. “He is risen” is the true arc of the greatest story ever told.

Hope is not a nice, optimistic feeling. “Hope,” says N.T. Wright, “is what you get when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word. The same worldview shift that is demanded by the resurrection of Jesus is the shift that will enable us to transform the world.”^a

That’s a lot of power for three simple words.

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

1 Corinthians 15:55, NIV

^a N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 75.