He has Risen!

“Easter is indeed the great pledge of our hope, but simultaneously this future is already present in the Easter message. It is the proclamation of a victory already won. The war is at an end—even though here and there troops are still shooting…the game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually, he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that. It is in this interim space that we are living…The Easter message tells us that our enemies sin, the curse and death, are beaten…If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humorless existence of a man who no hope. One thing still holds, and only this one thing is really serious, that Jesus is the Victor.”

—Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline