Why do we celebrate Easter? Lost among the colored eggs and chocolate candies is Easter's bold, almost unbelievable claim: Jesus has risen from the dead, and now everything is different.

Historian, biblical scholar and bestselling author N. T. Wright, in this excerpt from The Challenge of Jesus, takes a step back from the hoopla surrounding Easter to look at it in its earliest context, where we see a band of followers discovering the fulfillment of all the promises God had made to their people over the centuries, and pronouncing a new era that unsettled their friends and scandalized their oppressors. That era extends to our day, where to celebrate Easter is to receive an invitation to live as though God is among us, making everything new.