Thoughts from St. Andrew's Episcopal Church • Birmingham, AL

Easter Sunday • April 21, 2019

Old Testament: Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 65:17-25

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 or Acts 10:34-43

Gospel: John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark.” John 20:1.

I read this passage and I am reminded of cold mornings where I walk with the morning frost crushing under my feet. Those quiet, still, cold days befriended me as I traveled from home to the school bus stop. I walked alone and frequently in the dark morning twilight.

When I read this passage focusing on the manifestation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I am overwhelmed by the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead early and while it is still dark, but Christ’s followers just had not known it yet. This is a fresh paradigm for us to embrace. The reality that God’s life-giving acts occur in stillness, silence, and darkness. Jesus makes dark, damp, still tombs, into the lighted, warm, vibrant wombs of animated existence bursting forth for all time!

In the 50 days of Eastertide, we recall the events and encounters that would seem to afford the light of the resurrection to be obscured by happenings in the world and in our lives. Resurrection Sunday certifies to us that the light of Jesus Christ shall never be extinguished by apathy, fear, or even death. Indeed, nothing shall separate us from the love of Jesus Christ.

Eastertide reminds me that God is forever omnipotent, omnipresent, always redeeming, continuously loving. The potency of God raising Jesus from the dead is in the simple fact that whenever guilt, hurt, failure, shame, fear, and death abound, Jesus’s love supersedes and overrides all of these to nullify their vigor in our souls and bodies. If we are willingly vulnerable, we can allow God’s Holy Spirit to reveal to us that resurrection happens in unexpected ways, and in unexpected places, always — and most especially in the early darkness. We can then, like Mary Magdalene, let go of our expectations of Jesus Christ, and go tell others we have seen the Lord, and we have experienced resurrection!

Happy Easter, Happy Resurrection Sunday!

The Reverend Dr. Tommie Watkins