He Lives

By President Gordon B. Hinckley

From an April 1996 general conference address.

President Gordon B. Hinckley teaches us that remembering the Savior’s Resurrection can bring us peace.

Easter morning is the Lord’s day, when we celebrate the greatest victory of all time, the victory over death.

Those who hated Jesus thought they had put an end to Him forever when the cruel spikes pierced His quivering flesh and the cross was raised on Calvary. But this was the Son of God, with whose power they did not reckon. Through His death came the Resurrection and the assurance of eternal life.

With sorrow unspeakable those who loved Him placed His wounded, lifeless body in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. He had taught them of His eventual death and Resurrection, but they had not understood.

The Jewish Sabbath passed. Then came a new day, a day that ever after was to be the Lord’s day. In their sorrow Mary Magdalene and the other women came to the tomb. The stone was no longer in place. Curiously they looked inside. To their astonishment the tomb was empty.

Distraught and fearful, Mary ran to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved. She cried, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him” (John 20:2).

She who had loved Him so much, she who had been healed by Him, was the first to whom He appeared. There followed others, even, as Paul declares, up to 500 brethren at one time (see 1 Cor. 15:6).

Now the Apostles understood what He had tried to teach them. Thomas, on feeling of His wounds, declared, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

Can anyone doubt the veracity [truth] of that account? No event of history has been more certainly confirmed. There is the testimony of all who saw and felt and spoke with the risen Lord. Two sacred volumes speak of this most glorious of all events in all of human history. Beyond these is the witness and the testimony, borne by the power of the Holy Ghost, of the truth and validity of this most remarkable event.

In the hour of deepest sorrow we draw hope and peace and certitude [certainty] from the words of the angel that Easter morning: “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said” (Matt. 28:6).

He is our King, our Lord, our Master, the living Christ, who stands on the right hand of His Father. He lives! He lives, resplendent [magnificent] and wonderful, the living Son of the living God.

He Is Risen, by Del Parson