Easter 2025: "What Just Happened?"

It’s Resurrection Sunday!  It's time for us to get as excited as Presbyterians typically can and do the thing we do during Easter.  I'll go first, and you follow. 

He Is Risen! He Is Risen, Indeed!

Easter Sunday is when we celebrate the victory of life over death, light over the darkness, and hope that can spring eternal.  

We are also invited to enter into an unbelievable story, one that is central to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. 

Unbelievable Things That Are Actually True 

1. You're bioluminescent. You glow. 

2. Adding salt to pineapple makes it taste sweeter. 

3. Fir trees can grow in your lungs. 

4. Your heartbeat will sync to the rhythm of music you're listening to. 

5. Mosquitos can tell which blood type you are and are more likely to bite someone with O-type than A-type. 

6. The average cloud weighs over a million pounds. 

7. 50% of pilots admit to falling asleep mid-flight. 29% of those say that when they woke up, the co-pilot was also asleep. 

There are a lot of unbelievable things in the universe that are true. And we seldom give them a second thought. 

Why is it so hard for us to fully embrace the mystery of the Resurrection?

Because we’re still waiting for the world to change. We're still waiting for the promises of Resurrection and all things made new to come true.  

We are afraid to hope that hard. 

But what if we could live as Resurrection People?  What if we could fully embrace the unbelievable truth that sin, death and evil don't get the last word?

EASTER INVITES US TO BELIEVE THE UNBELIEVABLE

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body.  4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men[c] said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

• Luke’s Gospel is slightly different- Jesus is not at the scene. 
• The statement about looking for life in graveyards is a key statement. 
• The women present at the tomb is in every Gospel—Mary Magdalene
• The Apostles did not believe them—Peter was “amazed,” not “convinced.”

The weightiness that Jesus “is not here” forces the reader to leave behind the graves of certainty and finality and move to defiant hope.

Jerusha Matsen Neal - This is more than a happy end… love is stronger than death, and God is embodied and active in the world. 

What Does The Resurrection Teach Us?

• To let go of certainty and what we expect from Jesus. 
• To leave behind the graves of stasis and despair. 
• To not be afraid to ask “What if—?” of the unbelievable. 

EASTER INVITES US TO BELIEVE THE UNBELIEVABLE