In Anxious Times, Easter Provides Hope
This Sunday, many of us will gather around tables, surrounded by family, friends and familiar traditions, to celebrate Easter. There will be laughter, stories, maybe a favorite dish or two passed around with love.
But for others, this Easter might feel different. Heavier. Quieter. Maybe you’re carrying a weight that no one else sees—worry about a diagnosis, uncertainty about the future, fear over the economy or something else you can’t control. Maybe you’re watching someone you love struggle, and you feel helpless. Maybe the headlines hit too close to home, especially when they threaten Medicaid funding or support systems your loved one with disabilities depends on.
And yet, maybe that’s exactly why we need Easter right now.
As the great preacher Scott Hoezee points out, “Easter did not happen in a bright, airy, and decked-out-in-white church sanctuary.”
Easter happens in the darkest times, in the middle of all the fear, uncertainty, and pain—where death and fear reside—because that’s when we need it most.
Our Gospel reading from John bears that out.
“While it was still dark” that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene treks to Jesus’ tomb. She voyages there not in the sunny, cheerful morning light, but in the darkness.
When she arrives, she notices the stone has been moved and decides that something sinister is afoot. Peter and the other disciples draw the same conclusion, after a more thorough investigation of the scene.
What follows next is Mary, standing in the dark of night, weeping over the latest horror brought upon Jesus, whom she loved.
Why was Mary crying?
She, like each of us, was poignantly aware of death’s finality and the decay it brings to the bodies of the people we love. We can assume Mary saw what was done to Jesus’ tomb as a crime against him after his passing, causing her more heartache.
But then, something else happens in the story. Something that surprises everyone, even Mary.
Mary runs back to where the disciples are and she becomes the first disciple to announce, “I have seen the Lord!”
She saw him, even if she could not hold onto him.
So, today, Jesus asks us, as we stand in the darkness of night: Why are you afraid? Why are you sad?
It’s true that we may not fully feel and comprehend the Resurrected Christ through our hardships.
But, here is our good news for today: If we have faith, we, too, have seen the Lord—even if our eyes are blurred by fear and uncertainty. It is in the darkest nights of the soul that Easter happens.
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!