Sermon for Easter Sunday 2026

John 20:1-18

Christ is Risen! Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, is our resurrection, our life everlasting, our transcendence of this mortality into immortality. Just as the earth comes out of the death of winter, the frozen ground and wilted plants thaw and begin to bloom again, so with the resurrection of Jesus, we too enter into new life that is even yet a shadow of what is to come. We have the gift of resurrection life now, but in this flawed and scarred world, we await the return of Christ, when with our resurrection the renewal of all things will be completed. The New Creation is what we await, for Christ is risen!

The resurrection is the culmination of history. All history before it was leading up to it, and all that has followed has been defined by it. It stands as the defining moment of the human story, and by it we understand God’s purposes and our destiny. Consider: what occurred to lead to this moment? We started with a story about the original humans, the story of people who were created in God’s image and had a relationship with God, and who threw it away because existence in a paradise was not enough: they needed to have God’s power too.

We move from the gradual but inevitable slide of humanity into greed, violence, and hatred, until God calls Abraham to follow him. Abraham leaves his comfortable home, and his idolatry, to follow God’s command. From him comes a people, the Hebrews, who are enslaved in Egypt. God then saves them through a series of miracles, freeing them from slavery. He then gives them a law, a guide to living well, both in obedience to God and to love one another. 

Despite their complaints, God allows their children to come into a land and, eventually, give them a king. Again and again, they fail to follow God and turn to other gods, to oppressing others, to pursuing what the world offers. This turning from God leads to century after century of self-imposed suffering. Yet, God preserves them through the conquest and exile of the Assyrians and Babylonians; through the oppressive temptations of the Persians; through the enforced idolatry of the Greeks; and under the hard rule of the Romans. 

Through this long story, it comes down to this: Jesus of Nazareth. One man, carrying the centuries of promise on his back. But he could carry it, because while truly human, a first-century Jewish man, he was also God the Son. God, incarnate. All of this history came to this point, as only the Triune God could orchestrate. The one God in three persons, all eternally and fully united, their counsel and will utterly one. And this One God in Three Persons, in eternal, continuing, self-giving. One God, the Father giving completely to the Son and Spirit; the Son giving to the Father and Spirit; the Spirit giving to the Father and Son.

This is what so many do not understand. The very nature of God is self-giving love. Creation was not needed or necessary; it is a gift of God. The Triune God who gave us the gift of existence, the gift of life, would also do what was necessary to lead us to our final purpose: to be united to God. And so God determined that the Son would take on humanity. A full human nature, just like ours. He “dwelt among us,” John chapter 1 says, meaning, tabernacled or pitched his tent, an apt word given the people to whom he came.

Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary, grew up, taught and preached across Palestine. His message, that the Kingdom of God was about God’s self-giving, which was to lead to our self-giving, culminating in the New Creation in which violence and greed would be no more, disturbed and angered the religious and political establishments, which were built upon greed, violence, and control. And so, he was crucified.

We see the fear and sorrow of Mary Magdalene and the disciples. Despite Jesus’ multiple promises to rise from the dead, as we all know, the sorrow and despair following death is overwhelming. They are still living in doubt, in the fear that this is all there really is, and the best of us was murdered by brutal, torturous execution. That sorrow then reaches a breaking point, as when they encounter the empty tomb, they fear that his body was stolen by his enemies. This is the kick when they are already down, deep in the dark night of the soul.

Out of death, however, Jesus brings life. He is Life itself, and death was unable to hold him. Death was put to death, and sin’s shackles on human arms were broken. And those shackles, that hold of death upon us, was not insignificant. Consider the Powers of the world, the strength arrayed against him: the religious establishment of his own people opposed him and called for his execution; the mob cried out for his death; the foreign imperial power tortured & executed him. But this was the willing purpose of God, moving towards this end since before time began. All led to this, that the one who was fully human and fully human would receive death in order to defeat death, because he which is Life itself could not be held by death. 

And so history finds its culmination, in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The resurrection is the victory of God over death; it is the promise of a New Creation, where pain, sorrow, and tears are no more; it is the destiny of humanity, our own resurrection, and immortal life, because we are united to God, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, to move and grow ever and ever deeper into God’s life, world without end. 

All of life’s wonder: Beauty, truth, goodness, are found in Jesus. All of these things are measured by the resurrection. The God whose nature is to overflow with love into a cosmos that did not need creating, to make people able to ascend past our nature, to bring us into union with God by becoming one of us. God became human, so humanity could become one with God. Thus proclaims the resurrection, that as Jesus has defeated death, so have we. As Jesus returned to life, so shall we. As Jesus, God incarnate, is one with the Father and Spirit, so shall we, through him, be joined to the Triune life. The resurrection is Jesus’ victory, and our destiny. Embrace that which Jesus the Christ gifts to us, and believe in life anew. Amen.