Easter Sunday A 2026

​ We know the story. We’ve heard it for years and years. We claim to believe it is true. But do we really know what it means? 

We’re here to celebrate the story that Jesus is raised from the dead. We love to celebrate good news. It’s a great big “Yay God” moment. 
Yet, embodied in this risen Christ is death. After all, new life means the old life is no more. That is Paul’s point in his letter to the church in Colossae. We heard just the point this morning, with the expectation that we’ll take time to discover what that point means on our own. Or, perhaps someone might decide to explain it further. I wonder who that might be? 

We live in a culture, a world, if I may, where all are judged by their achievements. We bestow ribbons and trophies and have documents printed on fine paper and displayed in ornamented frames for all to see. Those who judge our worthiness use these as proof of their own authority to make judgement. It can be a circular process, much like a cat chasing its own tail. 

We treat salvation that same way. Some have taught the people of Colossae that they have to do certain things, eat the right foods, follow the rules, in order to be judged worthy of being raised with Christ. If you’ve read much at all of the Apostle Paul, you’ll know he has a few words to say about that. 

He speaks of a new way of life now, not just a life to be hoped for later on. And the way that new life comes is through death—moving away from old ways of living based on making ourselves worthy. Those ways keep us in line by a dependence on fear, not living in faith. 
We’ve kept that old tradition in place. We believe the right words, hold to specific creeds, say that sacraments have to be one thing and not the other. It’s difficult to give up the old ways. But new life is kept from its fullness—what Paul calls the full stature of Christ—in our hesitancy to let go. 

And letting go is what God has done. In the presence of the Word made flesh, God has let go of all the ways that keep us separated from the abundant life promised in Jesus of Nazareth. In other words, God has forgiven sin. Letting go is what the word translated as forgive means in the original Greek. And sin is a state of being, a way of life, that separates us from God. 

Today’s celebration is the evidence we need to let go of the greatest power the world has over us—fear. We can be the walking, talking, living Body of Christ in our own time when we let go of fear of death’s having the final word. We can live humbly, unbound by the chains tied to fear of loss of “stuff” like prestige and admiration, and minister to the poor, the friendless, the needy in the name of the One who entered into their suffering in his own persecution and death. We can do this without fear of what might happen to us at the hands of those who worship power and prestige, and who need to keep the poor and oppressed “in their place” in order to maintain the appearance of power.

In the resurrection of Jesus, God pronounced once and for all time that death no longer has the final word, but that death itself, eternal death, has died. This does not mean that we will not someday face our own physical death, but that in dying to things that also must someday die, we share in the same life of the risen Christ, and that life will never end.

And both of those things—death and new life—are ours now in our own time and place. Our lives are founded on that proclamation we made this morning, words which are a continuing affirmation of who we are and the purpose of our new life, even as we wait for its completeness.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
​
So are you.