04/05/2026
“There’s Just Something About Easter” – A Sermon for Easter Sunday
Today is Easter. And Easter is a big deal in the life of the Christian church.
It’s the day we tell the story at the center of our faith — the story of the resurrection of Jesus, the story of life overcoming death, the story of hope that refuses to stay buried.
Easter is a special day, because Easter tells a special story.
And because it’s Easter… there are a LOT more people here today than there usually are. (Pause)
I want to say this right up front: If you’re here this morning and this isn’t something you do every week, I’m really glad you’re here. I mean that.
And… you’re not alone. Churches all around the world are filled with more people than usual. That’s true of every Easter Sunday, every single year.
Do you ever wonder why?
I think it means something. Because people who have gotten used to having their Sunday mornings free don’t just suddenly decide to wake up early, get dressed, and come sit in a church pew for no reason.
Something brings us here on Easter. Maybe it’s tradition. Maybe it’s family. But I think, for a lot of us, it’s something deeper than that.
Maybe it’s hope. Maybe it’s grief.
Maybe it’s a feeling you haven’t been able to shake, or even put into words.
Maybe it’s just a quiet sense that Easter matters… even if you’re not sure why.
Maybe you’re not even sure what you believe, but you came anyway.
And if that’s you — if you came this morning searching for something — then I want you to know: you’re in exactly the right place.
Because the first Easter began with someone who was searching for something without even realizing she was searching.
Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb early in the morning to face death. She’s not expecting resurrection. She’s not going there because she believes Jesus has been raised from the dead. She’s going because he died. Because when someone you love dies, you go visit their grave. You grieve. You try to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.
She’s trying to make sense of what happened to her teacher, to her friend.
And what she finds is not what she expected. The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. A couple of angels try to console her as she’s crying. And even then — she still doesn’t understand.
She turns and sees Jesus standing there… and she doesn’t recognize him. She thinks he’s the gardener.
Even when resurrection is standing right in front of her, she still can’t make sense of it. It takes time. It takes Jesus calling her by name —
“Mary” — before everything begins to shift. She is a firsthand witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ… and she still doesn’t understand what she’s seeing.
And I think that matters.
Because if you came here this morning hoping I could make the resurrection make sense… I can’t.
Most of the time, my job as a pastor is to help people make sense of things — to make sense of scripture, to make sense of faith, to make sense of God.
But this? This doesn’t work like that.
The resurrection of Jesus doesn’t fit neatly into our categories. It doesn’t follow the rules we expect the world to follow. It doesn’t make sense.
But here’s the good news: It doesn’t depend on whether we can make sense of it. It depends on what God has already done. (Pause)
Listen, friends, because I am about to reveal a mystery… we will not all die, but instead, we will all be transformed.
That’s what the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians. He called it a mystery. Not something we solve. Not something we fully explain. And yet. Something real. Something true. But something we cannot fully wrap our minds around.
And that doesn’t make it less meaningful. It might actually make it more meaningful. Because some of the most important things in life are like that.
Love is like that. Grief is like that. Hope is like that.
And resurrection… is like that.
I may not be able to explain how God raised Jesus from the dead. But maybe I can help make sense of why that matters.
So… what does Easter mean for you? If you came here this morning looking for something — what will you find?
For starters, Easter means that death is not the end. Not for Jesus. And not for you. Whatever you’ve lost. Whoever you’ve lost. Whatever you’re afraid of losing. If you are afraid of dying — Easter says that death does not get the final word. The sting of death is taken away.
Easter also means that you don’t have to earn your place in the world. And you don’t have to earn your place with God. You don’t have to prove that you’re good enough. You don’t have to get everything right.
A place has already been prepared — just for you. You are already held in something bigger than your failures… and stronger than your doubts.
Easter means this: You can take off the armor. You can stop pretending. You can stop trying to be someone you’re not, or trying to hold everything together all the time. You don’t have to protect yourself quite so tightly.
Because love has already claimed you. Simply accept that you are accepted.
Before you showed up here this morning, God had already decided that you are loved. That you matter. That you belong.
And here’s the part I might get in trouble for telling you, but Easter also means this: You don’t have to be in church every Sunday if you don’t want to be. You don’t have to do anything. That is the degree to which Easter has sealed your salvation. God’s taken care of it. It’s all under control, and you couldn’t mess it up if you tried.
God’s love for you doesn’t depend on your church attendance record, and the place God has prepared for you will always be there for you, no matter what. Not because of anything you have done or left undone, but because of what Jesus Christ did some 2,000 years before you were born.
Your salvation does not depend on you. There is nothing that you have to do, because your salvation has already been taken care of. In Jesus Christ, God has – already – reconciled the world to herself.
Easter means Jesus was serious when, with his dying breath, he declared: It… is… finished. (Pause)
If you never came back to church again, God would still be God. God would still love you. God would still hold you.
That does. Not. Change.
But… If you are here this morning, and this isn’t something you do every week — I hope you do come back.
Not because you have to. Not because God requires it of you. But because we forget. We forget what Easter means. We forget that death is not the end. We forget that we don’t have to prove our worth. We forget that we are already loved beyond our comprehension… beyond our wildest dreams.
Most of us are pretty dense. We can be told that we’re special and unique, that we are worthy of love and that we are loved a lot of times before we actually believe it. So come back when you need to be reminded.
And even when we don’t forget…
When we remember…
When we remember what Christ has done for us…
When we remember his life, his love, his compassion…
When we remember how he built a life of loving the people everyone else was judging and excluding…
Then maybe we start to think that we want to live differently. More generously. More openly. More connected to each other. More grounded in something deeper than fear or pressure or expectation.
And this — this community, this church — is a place where we practice that kind of life together.
Mary didn’t understand what was happening all at once. She had to hear her name. She had to turn. She needed time to begin to see. And maybe that’s how it works for us, too.
So if you came here this morning looking for something, that’s what being an Easter person offers you. Not certainty. Not easy answers.
But a mystery that holds hope.
A truth that doesn’t depend on us figuring it all out.
A promise that death is not the end, and that love is stronger than anything that tries to take it away.
Christ is risen. And that means — whether you come back next week or not — you are forever held in a love stronger than death.
Amen.
