Easter Sunday Morning
An adaptation of the homily I gave this Easter Sunday Morning.
Hallelujah Our Lord is Risen! This changes everything!
He and His way of Faith, Hope, Love, Compassion, Mercy, Humility and Forgiveness have conquered cruelty, torture, oppression and murder. His way is victorious. This changes everything.
As we look and listen to the news we are apt to believe that the strong and mighty, political power, survival of the fittest, bombs and tanks, economic power, financial markets win. But today tells us otherwise.
Jesus’ resurrection tells us that His way has conquered the strong and powerful and their evil. The evil we witness on the news and for some of us, experience in our lives, does not have the last say. Jesus’ way will triumph.
As in today’s Gospel John 20: 1-9, we may, like the disciples, not immediately understand the signs, take a while to believe their full extent but eventually come to the realization that….The tomb is empty. The grave clothes are folded. The one who was crucified now stands alive.
Easter Sunday morning is not loud or boastful—it comes gently, like the rising sun. It meets us in the garden of our lives, often still carrying the scent of grief, and offers a new beginning. Christ is risen—not as a memory or a symbol, but as the living Lord who walks beside us now. His resurrection is not only the defeat of death, but the restoration of hope, the promise that nothing—no suffering, no sin, no sorrow—will ever have the final word.
Today we reflect on our own experiences of resurrection—those moments when light returned after a long night, when joy surprised us in the midst of mourning, when we found ourselves singing again after seasons of silence. We remember the people who stood with us at the tombs of our lives, and the gentle ways God has called us back to life.
Probably we are facing such a need this Easter—a place in our hearts or lives still waiting to rise. If so, I urge us to reflect on Jesus as He steps out of the tomb into the cool morning air. Let us walk with Him in faith, even if our steps are slow. The stone is rolled away. Christ is risen—and with Him, so are we.