one more When Jesus Came to Harvard exerpt, pg 275-278

"The Protestant theologian Jurgen Moltman correctly notes that, for the Israelites, resurrection did not 'refer to everlasting life or happiness'; rather, it was 'a theological symbol to express faith in God's justice at the end of history . . . It was not a longing for life everlasting, but a thirst for justice." . . . This is why for centuries Christians have spoken of Easter as a 'second exodus.' The idea is that in the original liberation of Jesus from the grip of death, God inflicted a mortal wound not just on human mortality, but on the tyrannical forces that murder innocent people like him. . . . [God] raised an innocent man who had placed himself alongside the misfits and the outcasts of his day, who taught people to love their enemies, who boldly confronted the rapacious elite, and who was tortured and killed -- like so many others before and after him -- by a depraved system of law and order. Furthermore, he was murdered because of who he was and what he did and said. He died because of the way he lived.

"How Jesus died is also very important. In the bibical texts he is not just described as 'dead' but 'crucified.' There is a difference. To restore a dead person to life might be seen to strike a blow at mortality. But to restore a crucified man to life means to strike an equally decisive blow at the system that caused his wrongful death, and the death systems that continue to cause the suffering and fatality of millions in what the Latin American theologian Jon Sobrino calls 'a world of crosses.' The Resurrection story points not just to the ultimate victory of life over death, but of God's shalom over cruelty, greed, and atrocities."