Before the sun is fully up, before the wheels of a new week begin to turn, a woman stands at an open tomb and cannot yet name what has happened. That is where Easter begins: not with trumpet certainty, but with astonishment. Stones meant to keep death sealed have been moved. Conclusions we thought were final are suddenly provisional. The world is not as closed as it seemed.
Witnesses, not wishful thinkers
Peter’s brief sermon in Acts is astonishingly concrete. God anointed Jesus; he did good; he was killed on a tree; God raised him; and then; Peter lingers on this; “we ate and drank with him after he rose.” Easter faith is not the triumph of religious feeling over the facts; it is the announcement of new facts. The Risen One is not an idea that consoles; he is a person who shares a table.
Peter also says Jesus is “judge of the living and the dead,” and that through him is forgiveness of sins. The Resurrection, then, does two things at once. It establishes the truest standard by which every life will be measured; Jesus’ own self-giving love; and it opens the door of mercy to those who have failed that standard. Justice and mercy meet at the empty tomb.
In an age allergic to gullibility and hungry for authenticity, Peter’s emphasis matters. The first Christians did not gather because they found a spiritual technique that worked; they gathered because they met Someone alive who had been dead, and their lives were reconfigured by that encounter.
The empty tomb and the slow birth of faith
John tells of running feet, peering into shadows, folded cloths set aside. One disciple “saw and believed,” and yet “they did not understand the Scripture” that he must rise. Belief arrives before full comprehension. Easter does not wait for us to have everything figured out; it slips past our brilliant explanations and puts us on the move.
Most lives have this shape: a clue appears, a door cracks, a word stirs, and only later do we see how the pieces fit. The Resurrection does not erase the need to think; it gives thought a new horizon. We can allow signs of hope to count as evidence without denying that our understanding will grow. Faith, on Easter terms, is a willingness to step into the light we have.
If part of you stands with Mary Magdalene; confused, grieving, unable yet to pronounce joy; that part is not excluded. It is precisely there the Risen Christ loves to begin.
Seek the things that are above; without abandoning the earth
“Seek what is above,” Paul writes to the Colossians, “where Christ is seated.” He is not recommending escapism. To seek what is above is to set our desire on the One who has walked through death and now reigns with scars intact. It is to let his life be the measure of ours.
Paul adds a mysterious sentence: “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Easter gives a new location to our true self. Hidden does not mean absent; it means secure. Much of what matters most; faithfulness that no one notices, forgiveness offered in silence, courage kept under pressure; remains unseen. But hidden with Christ is not lost with Christ. When he appears, says Paul, “you too will appear with him in glory.” The seeds sown now in patience will not be wasted.
This perspective can recalibrate daily choices:
- Ambition is purified when the true glory we seek is communion with Christ, not visibility before others.
- Suffering is not romanticized, yet it is not meaningless; it becomes participation in the Paschal pattern.
- Joy ceases to depend on outcomes and begins to depend on presence; his presence.
Clear out the old yeast
Alternatively, we hear Paul tell the Corinthians to “clear out the old yeast” so as to become a fresh batch. On Easter, that image lands with bite. Old yeast is whatever habit quietly inflates self-importance and sours relationships; malice, duplicity, cynicism. The unleavened bread Paul calls for is “sincerity and truth.”
In a culture of spin, sincerity is a form of resistance. In an economy of outrage, truth-telling without contempt is countercultural. Clearing out the old yeast may look like:
- Choosing one relationship to re-approach with simple honesty; no exaggerations, no performances.
- Refusing to share content that trades in dehumanization, even when it flatters our side.
- Making a confession of sins that have become routine, precisely to break their quiet power.
This is not moral self-improvement; it is cooperating with the new leaven of the Resurrection; the Holy Spirit raising us into a different way of being human.
“Do not be afraid… go to Galilee”
Matthew shows the women “fearful yet overjoyed.” That pairing is honest. Resurrection joy does not cancel fear like a math problem; it accompanies it and transforms it. Twice they hear, “Do not be afraid.” Then a direction: “Go to Galilee; there you will see him.”
Galilee is where the story began, where Jesus walked among ordinary lives and called unlikely disciples. To go to Galilee now is to return to the places we actually live; kitchens, classrooms, hospital corridors, sidewalks; and expect to meet him there. Easter sends us back to beginnings with new eyes. The Risen One does not ask us to inhabit an ideal world; he promises to meet us in the present one.
Burning hearts and broken bread
Luke’s Emmaus account unfolds like the pattern of the Sunday liturgy. The Lord draws near on the road. He opens the Scriptures. Hearts warm. Then at table, in the breaking of the bread, eyes recognize him. He vanishes from sight, yet his presence intensifies, and mission begins.
Easter faith matures along this path:
- Word: Let Scripture be more than information. Ask for the grace to have it “open” the story of your week.
- Sacrament: Linger over the Eucharist as the place where the Risen Christ feeds his friends. “We ate and drank with him” is not merely ancient memory; it is today’s gift.
- Mission: Burning hearts lead to hurried feet. The more tangibly we receive him, the more quickly we are sent; toward those who grieve, toward fractured friendships, toward neglected corners of our city.
The day the Lord has made
The psalm gives Easter its refrain: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.” The line is not a suggestion to feel cheerful; it is a summons to recognize the new creation already at work. The cornerstone once rejected has become the foundation. What seemed unusable in God’s building project; failure, weakness, even death; has been taken up and refashioned.
For anyone carrying rejection today, Easter is deeply personal. In Christ, what was cast aside is not only restored; it is built into a new architecture of grace. The wounds do not vanish; they become windows.
Christian joy, then, is not denial. It is the steady confidence that the Father has acted decisively in Jesus, and that no darkness; however dense; has the last word. To rejoice is to align with reality.
A small Easter rule for the week
- Begin each morning by saying aloud, even before checking a screen: “This is the day the Lord has made.” Let gratitude set the key.
- Reconcile one relationship in a concrete way; send the message, make the call, ask forgiveness, forgive.
- Fast from one “old yeast” that leavens your day with bitterness: sarcasm, doom-scrolling, a rehearsed resentment. Replace it with a simple act of truth or mercy.
“Death and life contended,” sings the ancient Sequence, and life won. Not by erasing death, but by passing through it and breaking its dominion from within. That victory does not hover above history; it runs along our roads, sits at our tables, opens our Scriptures, and quietly turns failures into foundations.
Christ is risen. Truly, he is risen. And because he is, today is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad.