The Risen Christ Still Meets You

The resurrection of Jesus is not the end of His work for you. It is the beginning of how He continues to give Himself to you.

After Easter, it can be easy to think of Christ’s work as something that has already been completed and now belongs primarily in the past. The cross stands behind us as the place where forgiveness was won. The empty tomb stands behind us as the proof that death has been defeated. And in one sense, this is entirely true. When Jesus cries out, “It is finished” (John 19:30), He declares that everything necessary for our salvation has been accomplished. There is nothing left for us to add, nothing left for us to complete. The work of redemption is finished.

But the Christian life isn’t lived by looking backward alone. The resurrection of Jesus Christ isn’t simply the conclusion of His work. It’s the beginning of how that finished work is continually given to His people. The risen Christ isn’t absent; He is present. More than that, He is active, continuing to come to His Church and deliver what He has already secured for us! This is the promise Jesus gives before His ascension: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). These aren’t vague or symbolic words. They are concrete. The risen Christ doesn’t withdraw from His people; He remains with them. The question, then, isn’t whether Christ is present, but where He has promised to be found.

This is often where the Christian faith often gets pulled in the wrong direction. We’re inclined to look for Christ in our internal experience, places like our emotions, our sense of clarity, or moments that feel spiritually heightened. When those experiences are present, we feel reassured and confident that we’ve experienced God. But when they’re absent, when the emotional high wears off or things are less clear, we begin to wonder whether Christ is near us at all. We begin to doubt either the message that we’ve received or our own standing before the Lord. But Scripture never directs us inward to locate Christ. Instead, it directs us to the places where He has promised to be: Word and Sacrament.

The Augsburg Confession teaches that it is through the Word preached and the Sacraments administered, “the Holy Spirit is given” (AC V). Christ has not left His presence to be discovered by us through feeling or intuition. He has attached Himself to external means, to the preaching of the Word, and to physical water, bread, and wine. He has promised to come to His people through His Word, through Baptism, through Absolution, and through the Lord’s Supper. These aren’t symbolic reminders of something 2000 plus years in the distant past. They are the concrete ways the risen Christ continues to act.

When the Word of God is preached, Christ Himself is speaking. As Paul writes, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). This isn’t merely information about Jesus. It isn’t some moralistic Ted Talk to give us five ways to love our spouse well. It is Jesus addressing His people, delivering to us forgiveness and life through His Word. When that Word is heard, Christ is present and at work through the Holy Spirit which grows faith within us (Romans 10:17).

In Baptism, Christ has already claimed you as His own. You have been united with Him in His death and resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word preached. That reality doesn’t weaken over time or fluctuate with your spiritual condition. It remains a fixed promise: you belong to Him. Your identity is not anchored in how you feel, but in what He has done for you.

In Absolution, the forgiveness of sins is not merely discussed. It is spoken directly to you. “I forgive you all your sins.” These words are not a general statement about God’s mercy, nor are they the words of the pastor proclaiming them to you. They are the voice of Christ Himself, in the mouth of His pastor, delivering to you the forgiveness He won at the cross into your present moment. What was accomplished by Him then is given to you.

And in the Lord’s Supper, the risen Christ gives you His body and blood, the very body that was crucified and the very blood that was shed for the forgiveness of sins, in a divine mystery that we cannot fully comprehend. This isn’t a symbol pointing away from Christ. It’s Christ giving Himself to you. The same Lord who walked out of the tomb now comes to His people in this meal, placing into their hands the gift of His sacrifice.

The resurrection meets you, not as some abstract truth that remains distant from your life, but as a living reality that is delivered to you again and again. The Christian life isn’t sustained by us reaching up to Christ or by trying to recreate a sense of His presence through emotional music and settings. It is sustained by Christ coming down to you, in the very places He has promised to be.

“The risen Christ is not absent; He is present, active, and continually giving what He has already secured.”

This becomes so very important in seasons when our faith feels weak or uncertain. There will be times when your experience doesn’t seem to align with what you believe, or with what other people tell you that you should have. There will be times when prayer will feel empty, when Scripture will feel quiet, and the presence of God will seem distant or unclear to you. In those moments, it is so very easy to conclude that something has gone wrong with you. But the promises of Christ do not depend on your ability to feel them. They depend on His faithfulness to keep them.

Christ has told you where you will find Him. He has placed Himself in His Word. He has given Himself to you in Baptism. He speaks to you in Absolution. He feeds you in His Supper. Even when everything feels uncertain, Christ isn’t far away. He is exactly where He has promised to be, giving exactly what He has promised to give: forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The resurrection, then, isn’t only the announcement that Christ lives. It is the assurance that the living Christ continues to come to His people. Not in ways that we invent, not in places that we guess, but in the means He has given to us. And because He is risen, those gifts are not empty. They are the living voice, the living presence, and the living mercy of Christ Himself…for you.