The world’s finest hourNearly 2,000 years have passed since that first Easter. A few friends of Jesus knew that he had been raised from the dead.Before the century was over, the message of the resurrection had spread around the Mediterranean Sea, to Rome, to North Africa, perhaps to Spain. Today there is no name in all the world as universally honored as the name of Jesus.During the 2,000 years, empires have come and gone. The names of great kings and leaders are forgotten or tucked away in libraries.Jesus lives on — in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people! And why not? He is a risen Lord. He lives. He was raised from the dead. He is the symbol of a life which death cannot destroy. But he is more than a symbol. He is the source of life. He is the fullness of what we call human. He is the fullness of what we call divine.There is no victory in battle, there is no advance in government; there is no triumph in science to rival the supreme significance of that first Easter. For a bewildered and disenchanted world it has become the one assurance that we do not struggle alone on this planet. God has invaded and intervened. This is what Easter tells us.The God who holds this vast universe in mysterious balance loves us. He loves us enough to have come to us and to have become one of us. He loves us enough to have died on a cross on Good Friday for us. This is the guarantee of Easter.In a direct way and in many indirect ways, the resurrection of Jesus has given the human race courage to struggle for justice, to embrace one another in mercy, to explore this universe of our Lord, and to sustain one another in the hope of a kingdom that death itself cannot destroy. Easter is the world’s finest hour.