John 20:1-20

Before the sun had the decency to rise, before hope had any real evidence to stand on, Mary Magdalene ran. Not casually walked. Not carelessly wandered. Not cautiously approached. Mary ran.

Because when love has been crucified, when dreams have been buried, when the world as you knew it has collapsed in on itself—grief does not move slowly or carefully. It rushes. It assumes. It fills in the blanks with the worst possible story: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

That’s what grief says.

Not, “He is risen.”

Not, “God is doing a new thing.”

Not even, “Let’s wait and see.”

No. Often in a downward spiral, grief concludes: “They have taken him.”

Things are bad, and it’s only going to get worse. When it rains, it pours. And we better get out the buckets cause the roof is going to leak.

It is the most human response in this broken world: to assume that what we love the most has been stolen, taken away, destroyed, and erased. And it is not coming back.

And if we’re honest on Easter Sunday 2026, we know that feeling.

Because we are living in a moment where it is easy, almost natural, to assume the worst. It is what we assume every time we check the headlines.

No one expects to turn on the news these days and hear: Good news! Things are not as bad as they seem! Good news! Better days are coming.

No, these days, we expect only news of despair. The secretary of defense calls himself the secretary of war and calls the hell that is war, “holy,” and uses religious language to bless overwhelming violence. Here at home, gas prices are still rising. Grocery bills continue to climb. Families sit at kitchen tables doing math that does not add up. All the while White Christian Nationalism is suffocating democracy. History is being whitewashed. And we wonder about the next election, if there will even be a next election. And we ask: Has the country we love been taken from us. And in the quiet spaces of our hearts, a question forms:

Has hope been taken from us too? Has something sacred been stolen from our lives?

And like Mary, we rush to conclusions. “They have taken…” They have taken our peace. They have taken our security. They have taken our freedom. They have taken our future.

The good news today is that Easter interrupts our assumptions. Because what Mary thinks has happened is not what God is actually doing. She comes to the tomb expecting death to have the final word. Instead, she finds confusion. She finds what seems like absence.

But what she really finds is mystery. And if we’re not careful, we will mistake the mystery of God for the absence of God too.

Early in my ministry, I remember sitting at a hospital bedside, the kind of room where the machines speak more than the people. A family gathered, holding hands, passing a tissue box to wipe tears, praying prayers that felt like they were bouncing off the ceiling. One of them finally said what everyone else was thinking but didn’t want to say it out loud: “Where is God in this?”

Not in anger. Not even in disbelief. Just…exhaustion, just grief. Because sometimes the silence of God feels like abandonment. Sometimes the unanswered prayer feels like absence. Sometimes the delay feels like denial.

And in that moment, there was no lightning bolt. There was no sudden turnaround. No miracle that tied everything up neatly. Just breath. Just presence. Just people refusing to let one another be alone.

And I remember realizing—almost against my will—that maybe God had not stepped out of the room.

Maybe God had simply refused to show up on our terms. Maybe the mystery of God is not that God is absent, but that God is present in ways we do not yet recognize. Present in the quiet grip of a hand. Present in the tears that fall without shame. Present in the stubborn love that keeps showing up even when hope feels thin.

We want a God who explains everything. But more often, we encounter a God who accompanies us through anything.

And that kind of presence—it doesn’t always feel like power. Sometimes it feels like weakness. Sometimes it feels like waiting. Sometimes it feels like an empty tomb before you understand what empty really means.

The good news of Easter is: just because we cannot see God clearly does not mean God is not working deeply. The mystery is not God’s absence. The mystery is that God is already at work—in the dark, in the silence, in the in-between—bringing life out of places we had already declared dead.

Let’s get back to our gospel lesson, for the story is getting ready to take to turn.

Peter and the beloved disciple run to the tomb. They see the linen cloths. They don’t fully understand—but something in them shifts. The story is not over.

And then Mary, still weeping, encounters a gardener…or so she thinks. “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She is still operating out of her assumption: “They have taken him.”

Until he speaks her name: “Mary.” And everything changes.

This is the Easter truth we are invited into today: We are often wrong about how the story ends.

We assume God is not present when God is standing in front of us.

We assume loss when God is working resurrection.

We assume absence when God is preparing revelation.

We assume death has won when love is already rising.

As Rev. Dr. William Barber reminds us in his prophetic witness, “We must learn to see not just the pain of the present, but the possibility of redemption breaking through it.”

Easter is not naïve optimism. It does not ignore the cross. It does not pretend that violence, injustice, and suffering are not real.

No. Easter stares the powers of death in the face and declares: You do not get the last word!

Not war. Not “overwhelming violence.” Not religious nationalism.

Not greed. Not lies. Not systems that crush the poor, while protecting the powerful. Not even the grave itself. The good news of Easter is that love gets the last word.

But here’s the thing—we don’t always recognize resurrection right away. Mary doesn’t. She mistakes Jesus for the gardener. Which, if you think about it, is not entirely wrong.

Because resurrection is a kind of gardening. It is God tending to what has been buried. It is life pushing up through the soil of despair. It is beauty growing in places we had already written off as dead.

And maybe that’s what we need to hear this Easter: That even now—especially now—God is at work beneath the surface.

In communities organizing for justice.

In neighbors caring for one another when systems fail.

In courage rising up in unexpected places.

In love refusing to give up.

In people who have gathered on a rainy Sunday morning with the audacity to believe that something happened on that day Mary ran to the tomb, something mysterious happened that we call resurrection.

We may not understand it. We may never wrap our minds around it. But I don’t believe that is important. What is important is that we live it. It’s even more important than believing it.

Jesus says to Mary, “Do not hold on to me… but go.”

Go tell the others. Go bear witness. Go live as if love actually has the final word in this world.

And that’s the invitation of Easter for all of us.

In a world quick to assume the worst, we become people who dare to hope anyway. In a culture shaped by fear, we become practitioners of love. In a nation that chooses violence to get its way, we choose a life of nonviolence while praying, not my will, but God’s will be done. In the face of systems that profit from despair, we become witnesses to resurrection.

Not because things are not as bad as they seem.

Not because better days are right around the corner.

Not because life in this world is suddenly going to become easy.

But because Christ is somehow, some mysterious way, risen.

And that changes everything.

So, the next time you feel that familiar rush of fear, the next time your heart wants to say, “They have taken…”—

Pause. Breathe. And listen.

Because resurrection often begins with a voice calling your name.

Reminding us:

What you thought was gone is not gone.

What you thought was over is not over.

What you thought was lost is only being redeemed.

Hate does not get the final word. Violence does not get the final word. Despair does not get the final word.

Love does. It always has. It always will.

Alleluia. Alleluia.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Risen Christ,

we come to you this morning carrying everything—

the joy we can name

and the weight we cannot quite put into words.

We come like Mary,

early in the morning,

still holding our assumptions,

still wondering if something sacred has been taken from us.

And yet, you meet us here.

So we pray—

not as people who have it all figured out,

but as people who are learning to trust you in the mystery.

God of life,

we lift before you a world that feels fragile.

We pray for places torn by war,

for lives caught in the crossfire of decisions made far from their homes.

We pray for wisdom where there is power,

for restraint where there is anger,

for courage where there is fear.

Let your peace rise where violence threatens to have the final word.

We pray for those feeling the pressure of rising costs—

for families stretching every dollar,

for workers carrying quiet anxiety,

for those who must choose between what they need and what they can afford.

Be bread in empty places.

Be provision where there is not enough.

Be hope where worry has taken root.

We pray for those gathered here and those we carry in our hearts—

for the sick and the recovering,

for the grieving and the lonely,

for those facing decisions, diagnoses, and uncertain futures.

Risen Christ,

meet them as only you can—

not always with easy answers,

but with your unmistakable presence.

Call their names in the darkness.

Remind them they are not alone.

Hold them in a love that does not let go.

God, teach us to be people of resurrection—

not just in what we believe,

but in how we live.

Where there is despair, make us bearers of hope.

Where there is division, make us builders of community.

Where there is injustice, make us seekers of your righteousness.

And when we are tempted to assume the worst—

to believe that love has been taken,

that hope has been buried,

that the story is over—

call our names again.

Turn us around.

Open our eyes.

Send us out.

We pray all of this in the name of the risen Christ,

who taught us to pray, saying:

Our Father…

Amen.

Invitation to Communion

This table is not for those who have it all figured out.

This is not a table for those who never doubted, never feared, never assumed the worst.

This is a table for Marys who come weeping. For disciples who run but do not yet understand. For people who have whispered, “They have taken…”

and are still learning how to say, “He is risen.”

Because at this table, we do not receive certainty—we receive presence. Bread that tells us God is still with us. Cup that reminds us love has already been poured out—and it has not run dry.

In a world where so much feels taken—peace, stability, freedom—this table declares: what God gives cannot be stolen.

Here, Christ meets us—not always where we expect, but always where we need.

So, come.

Come with your questions. Come with your grief. Come with your fragile hope.

Because the risen Christ is still calling our names, still breaking bread,

still reminding us:

Love does not lose. Love does not end. Love gets the last word.

 

Invitation to the Offering

In a world shaped by scarcity, we are taught to hold tight—

to protect what we have, to fear there won’t be enough.

But Easter tells a different story.

A story where life comes out of what was given away.

A story where love multiplies when it is shared.

A story where even what seemed lost is gathered up and redeemed.

So, we give—not because the world is secure,

but because God is faithful.

We give as an act of resistance

against fear, against greed, against the lie that death has the final word.

We give as a testimony:

that we believe in a God who is still bringing life out of empty places.

So let us offer our gifts, our lives, and our trust—

knowing that in God’s hands, nothing given in love is ever wasted.

 

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now into a world that will tempt you to assume the worst.

Go into places where fear speaks loudly,

where uncertainty lingers,

where it feels like something sacred has been taken.

But do not go as people of despair.

Go as those who have heard their name spoken by the risen Christ.

Go as those who know the tomb is empty—

not because nothing happened,

but because God happened.

And when you cannot see clearly,

when the mystery feels like absence,

remember:

God is still at work. Love is still rising. Hope is still alive.

So go—

to love boldly, to serve courageously, to live as witnesses to resurrection.

And may the God who brings life out of death,

the Christ who calls you by name,

and the Spirit who sustains you in every mystery

go with you, now and always.

Amen.