As we reflect on Easter today, some of us may be asking whether the resurrection is, as some of my atheist friends have told me, parochial.  Is it really so small and insignificant that it affects only a very small corner of an infinitely large universe?  Is one itinerant Jewish preacher's return from death really that important?
     If the resurrection happened, it's vastly important.  Why?  It tells us that this vast universe is the creation, in some way, of a personal being.  Only a personal being can cause another personal being to rise from the dead; impersonal things have no power over anything.  A personal creator being ensures that the fabric of the cosmos is more than its parts.  It is a work of eternity.
     In this light, the resurrection becomes anything but parochial.  The resurrection means that life is more than itself, that life as we know and love it is not all there is to experience.  There is more to life than meets the eye.  Or the ear.  Or the heart.  The resurrection means that this present is only the work of a far greater present still, a present that will never end.
     As Jesus told Martha in John 11, "He who believes in me will live even if he dies.  And he who believes in me will never die."
     Death is not the end.