Easter Sunday

Easter 1
5 April, A. D. 2026

Readings
Jeremiah 31:1-6, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43
+ John 20:1-18

The Collect
Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Homily

You may have perhaps heard the expression “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” It was Martin Luther King Jr. who said that, but he’d be the first person to admit that the human family will never achieve peace through our own care, effort, and intelligence. We don’t live quite long enough to root out the self-centered grasping toddler from our psyche: and some never even bother to try. I believe what Dr. King said, because I also believe what Dr. King meant: In the end we’re going to have peace—a real, true, just peace—but in order for that to happen something or someone must draw us beyond ourselves.

Wherein, then, lies our hope?

Christians believe this someone is the Holy Trinity understood most clearly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Now let’s be clear about this word, “Christian.” I don’t mean here people who go to Church. I mean the people that Peter describes in our reading from Acts today: those who live every day in awe of God, and who—in the power of their love—do what is right, and in so doing, become his witnesses.

One time I was complaining to my father, David, about the Church and all it’s institutional human foibles. And seeing through my self-righteous demeanor to my deeper feelings of desire for something better than what we are, he replied: “You know, son, in every time and in every place the Holy Spirit is calling people to live the love of Jesus. And in every time and in every place, someone is answering that call.

I’ve had about a decade to think about what my father taught me, and in that time I’ve seen clearly that if the Spirit weren’t calling me, I would have quit all this long ago. If the Spirit wasn’t taking away my sorrow and shame and regret and replacing them with wonder and acceptance and gratitude, there’s no way I’d be standing here right now. But the fact is, this work of handling holy things so that others may feel cherished by God is how I must work out my salvation with fear and trembling. In this time and in this place, the Spirit is calling me; and I feel an indefatigable desire at the center of my being to answer that call. I don’t what any day will bring, but I have come to a place of certainty about where all of this will lead.

This is the strangest thing about following Jesus. He doesn’t tell us what the journey will be like, he just tells us that he’ll be with us on it; and he tells us how it will all end. Isn’t that basically the opposite of our lives, in which our journey’s are at least moderately predictable? We have some say over the professions we choose, or the people we love, or whether we prefer light or dark roast coffee (light roast for me, please). But we have absolutely no idea about the end of our lives. That remains an enigmatic mystery, about which no one at all can offer advice. Jesus, on the other hand, says, “You will be with me in paradise; meanwhile I’ll be with you always. Show anyone who’ll listen the power of my love.”

While I was pondering all this, I had this ludicrous thought about Jesus running the NCAA Basketball Tournament. There wouldn’t be much March Madness at all if Jesus got on the mic just before the game and said, “UConn will put a stinger in Duke’s eye at the very last second, but it’ll be kind of a dull, sloppy game until the end.”

However, living a life lost in wonder, love, and praise for the gift that has been given in Jesus, is electrifying. In the midst of the worst day and the most heartrending news we can still cry tears of hope. Even when we have to face a terrifying health diagnosis, or a divorce, an unwanted lifestyle change, or a tragic death in the family, those who’ve found the love of Christ can rest in a peace the world can neither give nor take away: because we know the end of the story.

Dietrich Bonhoffer was a follower of Jesus who stayed in Hitler’s Germany long passed the time when that was safe to do. He was caught, imprisoned, and tortured physically and psychologically. And just before his concentration camp was liberated by the Allies he was executed by hanging. In the midst of all of that he was able to write this hymn:

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting, come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning
and never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
O give our frightened souls the sure salvation
for which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.

And when this cup you give is filled to brimming
with bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world you give us
the joy we had, the brightness of your sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through,
and our whole life shall then be yours alone.[1]

In the Crucified-Resurrected Jesus, we experience a love that sees beyond all sorrow, for it was Jesus’ own love for the Father which gave him strength for his own unspeakable suffering. Likewise, in our darkest hours, Jesus comes to us unlooked-for but deeply desired and asks us, “Why are you weeping?” And if we, like Mary Magdalene, will pour out our lamentation to him—if we’ll give him all our desperate sadness and doubt—we will in our turn hear Christ calling our names with a voice of pity and understanding and grace. He’ll call our names, and we’ll know the Savior’s voice: the voice of One who “has loved us with an everlasting love.” In that experience of recognition, everything will change: for we will understand that eternal life has already begun.

Joy is the end of the story, my dear brothers and sisters. Despite all the evidence of natural and human history to the contrary: joy is the end of the story. How we will get there remains at times quite hard to discern, but the end is sure. Listen then and receive the blessing of Paul of Tarsus, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who was able to endure terrifying suffering and death through his love of Jesus: listen to some of the most beautiful words in all of scripture:

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from [God’s] glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has called us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption: the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Silence

Glory be to the Holy and Undivided Trinity—
Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer—
as it was when the world was new,
is now,
and shall be unto the ages of ages.

Amen.