Is the resurrection, 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?
     Obviously, the resurrection is only important if we are personal beings.  Only personal beings rise from the dead; impersonal things were never alive.  If we look at the universe as the product of impersonal forces, well, we will indeed consider the resurrection to be irrelevant.  Why should a life in an accidental universe continue after it is over?  Deciding that the universe is the result of personal intelligence and intention, however, changes the equation, profoundly.  It means that the fabric of the cosmos carries a potential, a potential that would not be there otherwise, the potential to experience, somehow, some way, eternity.
     In this light, the resurrection becomes anything but parochial.  Indeed, it comprises the sum of existence.  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 beginning 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."
     Easter reminds us that only in a meaningful universe is there life again.