Walk into almost any liturgical church on a Sunday morning in spring, and you’ll hear it. A loud, rhythmic call and response that has echoed through stone cathedrals and storefront chapels for roughly two thousand years. "He is risen!" the leader shouts. Without missing a beat, the crowd roars back, "He is risen indeed!" It’s the He Has Risen Easter greeting, known formally as the Paschal Greeting, and it’s basically the "Merry Christmas" of the Christian world, only with a lot more theological weight behind it.
Most people think it’s just a nice tradition. A bit of Sunday morning flair. But if you look at the history, this phrase wasn’t just a greeting; it was a radical, world-flipping declaration.
The Morning That Changed Everything
The phrase stems directly from the Gospel of Luke, specifically chapter 24. Imagine the scene: a group of women, including Mary Magdalene, show up at a tomb expecting to find a body they can properly prepare for burial. Instead, they find an empty stone room and two men in dazzling clothes. The angels didn't mince words. They asked, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" and then dropped the bombshell: "He is not here; he has risen!"
He rose.
That’s it. That’s the crux.
Early Christians took this specific phrasing—He has risen—and turned it into a sort of secret handshake during times of Roman persecution. It was a way to identify fellow believers without getting arrested, but it was also a defiant middle finger to the status quo. In a world where the Roman Empire had the final say on who lived and who died, claiming someone had beaten death was a political act as much as a religious one.
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The Paschal Greeting Across Cultures
It’s honestly fascinating how this one phrase translates. In Greek, it’s Christos Anesti. In Russian, Khristos Voskres. If you go to an Orthodox service, you’ll hear it repeated dozens of times, often accompanied by the ringing of bells and the smell of heavy incense.
The Western world tends to be a bit more "low-key" about it. We stick it on greeting cards or use it as a social media caption. But the root is the same. It’s a declaration of a miracle that, according to historians like N.T. Wright in The Resurrection of the Son of God, was the single most important factor in the survival of the early church. Without the belief that Jesus literally walked out of that grave, the movement would have died in that first-century tomb. It’s that simple.
Some folks think it’s all metaphorical. Sorta like spring flowers blooming after a hard winter. But for the billions of people who celebrate He Has Risen Easter, the metaphor isn't enough. They’re banking on a physical reality.
Why the Grammar Actually Matters
Have you ever noticed it’s "He has risen" or "He is risen," rather than "He rose"?
There’s a reason for that.
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In Greek, the tense used is often the perfect passive. This sounds nerdy, I know, but stay with me. It implies an action that happened in the past but has ongoing, permanent results in the present. It’s not just a historical event like "George Washington crossed the Delaware." It’s an ongoing state of being. To the believer, Jesus isn't just someone who survived an execution once; He is a living entity right now.
That’s why you don't hear people say "He rose" on Easter morning. It sounds too finished. Too dead.
Common Misconceptions About the Resurrection
Let's get real for a second. There are a lot of weird ideas floating around about what happened that Sunday.
- The "Swoon" Theory: Some people suggest Jesus didn't actually die, but just fainted on the cross and woke up in the cool air of the tomb. Doctors have pretty much debunked this. Roman centurions were professional killers; they knew when someone was dead, and the physical trauma of a Roman scourging followed by crucifixion makes "waking up" and rolling away a two-ton stone physically impossible.
- The Wrong Tomb: This one argues the women just got lost. But the tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, a well-known public figure. It wasn't exactly a needle in a haystack.
- Mass Hallucination: This is the idea that the disciples wanted him to be alive so badly they all imagined the same thing. Psychologists generally agree that mass hallucinations of that scale—involving hundreds of people at different times—don't really happen.
When people celebrate He Has Risen Easter, they are leaning into the historical evidence provided by eyewitness accounts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul claims over 500 people saw Jesus at once. You can disagree with the conclusion, but the claim itself is rooted in documented oral tradition that dates back to within years of the event.
The Cultural Impact of the Resurrection
Think about how much of our world is shaped by this one weekend.
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Our calendar is literally split in half by the life of this person. The art of the Renaissance, the music of Bach, the very concept of "hope against all odds" that permeates our movies and literature—most of it draws water from the well of the resurrection story. Even if you aren't religious, the "triumph of life over death" is the ultimate human narrative.
It’s why we do the whole Easter egg thing. Eggs are an ancient symbol of new life. The hard shell represents the sealed tomb, and the cracking open represents the resurrection. We’ve commercialized it with plastic grass and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs (which are elite, let's be honest), but the core symbol remains surprisingly intact.
Beyond the Sunday Service
So, what does this actually look like in the real world? It's not just about wearing a pastel tie or a fancy hat once a year. For those who take the phrase seriously, it changes how they view suffering. If death isn't the end, then tragedy doesn't get the final word. That's a pretty powerful psychological tool.
It’s also about community. The Paschal Greeting is meant to be shared. It’s a communal acknowledgment of a shared hope. In many traditions, the greeting is followed by a feast that lasts for days. It's meant to be loud, messy, and joyful.
Actionable Ways to Experience Easter History
If you want to move beyond the surface level of the He Has Risen Easter celebration, there are a few things you can actually do to engage with the history and the culture of the day.
- Read the primary sources: Don't just take a preacher's word for it. Read the four Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). They all tell the story from slightly different angles, which is exactly what you'd expect from real eyewitness testimony.
- Attend a Tenebrae service: These usually happen on the Friday before Easter. It’s a service of shadows and darkness. It makes the "He is risen" moment on Sunday feel a lot more earned when you’ve sat in the dark for a while first.
- Visit a museum or gallery: Look at how the resurrection has been portrayed in art over the last 1,500 years. From the stark, iconographic style of the East to the hyper-realistic paintings of the Italian Renaissance, the visual history is stunning.
- Explore the "Old World" traditions: Research how different cultures celebrate. In Poland, they have Śmigus-dyngus (wet Monday), where people throw water on each other to symbolize the new life of baptism and the resurrection.
- Engage with the "Case for Christ" literature: Authors like Lee Strobel or Tim Keller have written extensively on the historical reliability of the resurrection if you want to dig into the "how" and "why" from a journalistic or philosophical perspective.
The phrase "He has risen" isn't just a dusty relic. It’s a living piece of language that continues to define the worldview of billions. Whether you view it as literal truth, a beautiful myth, or a historical curiosity, its impact on the human story is undeniable. It reminds us that, at least in the stories we tell ourselves, light eventually finds a way to break through the dark.