Many of the beautiful Easter lily plants on the altar today are in memory of loved ones who have passed away.
My mother died in 2013, and I remember that first Easter without her. I wasn’t sure how I would get thru it: the first Easter without my mother.
Now, my mother wasn’t a reader, she didn’t knit, or do puzzles. What my mother did for fun was cut coupons. She was the Coupon Queen. She was a child of the Great Depression, and she took great joy saving money.
Well, the Saturday before that first Easter without my mother, I was on line in the grocery store, and an elderly woman behind me tapped me on the shoulder and she said, “I notice you are buying that type of cereal. Well, I have a coupon for it.”
No one had ever done that to me before.
And, as she handed me the coupon, I saw her beautiful smile, and I looked into her eyes, and I felt my mother’s presence so strongly and powerfully. It was undeniable.
I am sure many of you here in this room today have similar stories to tell about feeling the presence of your loved ones who have died.
If we passed around a microphone and everyone shared their stories that would be the perfect Easter sermon, because that’s what Easter is all about.
Jesus’s loved ones experienced his presence after he died. And, they came to the realization that death is an illusion. That life is eternal.
They came to see to see that Light of the World hadn’t been extinguished, but that it lives on.
Now, Biblical scholars and historians have no idea of the exact date that Jesus died, but the early church decided to celebrate Easter during the time of the Spring Solstice.
The Spring Solstice is a celebration because what appears dead in winter is coming back to life.
That’s what we’re celebrating today…that through the winters of our lives, through our times of darkness, the life and the light still shines. It cannot be extinguished.
As it says in the beginning of John’s Gospel, “Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” That’s what Easter is all about.
Now, we as Progressive Christians, understand that the stories of the Bible were written symbolically, and they were meant to be understood symbolically, not literally.
Most Progressive Christians I know don’t literally believe in a talking snake, or Noah’s Ark, or that Jonah lived in a fish for three days, or in a virgin birth.
And, if you’ve been with us through the season of Lent, we also came to understand that the miracles of Jesus were also meant to be understood symbolically.
Yet many Progressive Christians draw the line at the Resurrection Story. They say, “Yea, sure, all those other stories in the Bible are symbolic, but the resurrection story. That one literally happened. Jesus physically rose from the dead.” Can’t question that!
I had someone come up to me after my Easter sermon last year and say, “Pastor Sal, if Jesus didn’t physically come back to life, then why are we here each week? Isn’t that what Christianity is all about? Isn’t that the basis of our faith?”
Well, as Bishop John Shelby Spong reminded us in his sermon about the Resurrection, the early gospel writers – people like Luke and Mark — did not write any stories of Jesus physically appearing after his death.
You would think that if Jesus had physically come back to life that one of the earliest gospel writers would have written about it, right?
The gospel story we heard this morning from John’s gospel was written generations after Jesus was born. And, in even that story, notice that Mary Magdalene doesn’t recognize Jesus at first. The man she’s talking to outside the tomb doesn’t look like Jesus. She thinks it’s the gardener.
Could it be that Mary felt the presence of Jesus in that gardener like I felt the presence of my mother in the woman at the grocery store?
We say in our church’s mission statement that we are a church that is more about the questions than the answers.
So, I don’t have the answer. I don’t know for sure exactly what happened on that first Easter morning, but what I do know for sure is that the resurrection is real.
And, the reason I know that is not because I read about it in a book or because some religious person told me. I know the resurrection is real, because I have experienced it firsthand. A man from Nazareth who died over 2,000 years ago is alive in me. I have felt his living presence in a very real and powerful way.
In the silence of prayer and meditation, I have felt his love, light and protection. I have felt his guidance and wisdom.
He is alive in me, and he is alive in you. That’s what our faith is all about. That’s why you’re here every Sunday, because you, too, have been touched and transformed by His Light.
And, that’s what I think those first Christians were trying to convey in the Resurrection stories. They were trying to convey that after Jesus died, they still felt his presence alive with them and within them.
That Presence, that Light is called “The Christ.”
And, that is why we say, “Christ is Risen.” Not Jesus. And, notice it’s PRESENT TENSE. Not, “Jesus HAS Risen” but “Christ is Risen.”
When we love one another unconditionally, Christ is risen in us. When we forgive those who have wronged us, Christ is risen in us. When we serve the least of these in our midst, Christ is risen in us. When we welcome the stranger and work for justice and peace in our world, Christ is risen.
That’s what we mean as Christians when we say that we are an EASTER PEOPLE. It means we are “PEOPLE OF THE LIGHT.”
And, when we LIVE FULLY and LOVE WASTEFULLY, the resurrection becomes real. Very real.
Easter, then, isn’t a just commemoration of a historical event. Easter is about us. The second coming of the Christ happens now, in us and through us.
So, my friends, on this joyous Easter morning, let us AWAKEN. Let us ARISE. Let us RESURRECT the Christ Light within us and shine if for all the world to see, so that, together, we may help bring about the Kingdom of Heaven right here on Earth.
May it be so. Amen.
Here are three questions for relfection and/or journal writing:
- The sermon suggests that resurrection is something we experience through love, presence, and connection rather than something to prove historically—when in your life have you felt a “resurrection moment,” and how did it change you?
- If “Christ is risen” is understood as something that happens through our actions (love, forgiveness, justice), what is one specific way you can embody that light in your daily life this week?
- The message emphasizes living with questions rather than certainty—how comfortable are you with ambiguity in your faith or beliefs, and what questions might be inviting you into deeper understanding right now?