Easter Sunday 2025

Luke 24:1–12 NIV

1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words. 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

You know I love Easter,

I love the egg hunts,

I love all the bright colors

I love how everyone comes to church dressed a little nicer

I feel like we are usually like a sweats and Jeans church (which I love), and Easter we transform.

And if your family is like mine Every year we dress nice for Easter, we get a good picture and we might post something on social media saying He is risen,

And it makes it look like it was the best Easter ever.

But from that picture where everything looks perfect what we do not see is the fight that broke out because of my oldest stealing my middle child's egg before church

And then trying to get to church and Finn refuses to wear socks or shoes to church because socks and shoes are boring

And then Eden wants to wear a peppa pig shirt but then spills stuff all over it and the other kids step in it.

And then we come and get this picture And I love Arika, but sometimes the pain that tears that go into the family photo have you wondering if its worth it.

And then we post on Facebook and it looks perfect right?

But here is the thing because sometimes I think we do this with the Easter story that we just read, we look at the story that we just read and what we do is we wrap the Easter story with this nice bow and we kind of forget how things start out in the story.

Because while the Easter story is this celebratory thing, we need to understand how it starts to understand just how big of a deal today is.

And I say this a lot of years, but the Easter story starts dark,

because right before the story that we just read there were these guys who followed Jesus called disciples and they had left everything to follow him.

They had seen Him work miracles, they had heard him teach and they believed that he was this person called the Messiah that was going to deliver them,

But now they have witnessed him captured, tortured and killed.

And while this is happening for the most part the disciples have scattered and ran when Jesus needed them most

And now as the story we read happens 3 days later and we see these two woman are getting ready to head to the tomb which was the grave where Jesus was buried (and we see them kind of walking in the middle of this mess)

And I just want us to sit in this for a second, because like I said we hold this view Easter and its this story that looks perfect.

Its like this statue, its cute, and nice,

But its really slik and slippery

But what happens in this story is things start to fall apart.

But with all seriousness there are probably some of us here this morning and we have tried holding things together,

but if we are honest with ourselves this is how we feel.

We are doing our best to make things look okay on the outside, but our story right now, is how the Easter story starts.

We might feel like things are falling apart, We feel broken, We feel beyond repair, Our lives are messy,

And if we are honest we find ourselves in a place where we feel like there is not a ton of hope.

But the beautiful part of this story is as these two women are on the way to the tomb (walking in the middle of this big mess) to do some of the final burial preparations to Jesus’s body, the story starts to change.

Because its dawn now, which means things are literally getting brighter.

And they get to the tomb and the stone that was used to seal the tomb was rolled away,

And not just then as they look in the tomb there are these two men that are angels in the tomb and they tell them that Jesus is Risen

But before they do they ask them “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

And this is a literal question, because they are looking for Jesus at a grave,

But I think it also speaks to what we do.

Because so often we are in our brokenness and we catch ourselves looking for hope in the brokenness.

and what we do is we come to the broken places of our life and we go maybe this will work.

Maybe I can find hope in the place that is hopeless.

And we try to fill the void in our life with the void in our life.

And you can picture the angel here going why are you looking for the hope in a place where there in none?

And I love that passage that was read earlier in from Romans 6, because while broken pieces in our lives are a reality,

I mean we all have areas that can look like this,

But in Romans 6 we are told we can’t look for hope in the old, because if you have followed Christ you are made new.

So when you are made new the brokenness you probably are not going I wish I could go back to that.

I mean its almost like how last year Arika and I had a car that out of no where had tons of issues.

And I know I mentioned this recently, but it had this cool feature where whenever you stopped the entire car woukld start shaking, like it was getting read to blow.

The kids loved it

It had all the lights lit up on the dashbord

To shift gears I had to use a screw driver

I got to know the Wesner family (that owns Wesner automotive) a lot better, because I think there was a period I would be there every other day,

Sometimes the car would just shut off and that would be that until it was ready to drive again in a few hours

And what happened is eventually we traded it in for a minivan.

And can just tell you there has not been once where I am lying awake at night and thinking how I miss my old car, I wish I kept it

Why? because the new car is a thousand times better then the old.

And in our walk with God I think the question is when are we going to stop embracing the old in our life and run fully into the new?

And I love it because in the story as things have begun to change, the angel tells the two women at the grave this amazing news and not just that, but he begins to reframe the story, to show how God was moving all along.

I know we read it but look at verses 6-8. The angel says:

Luke 24:6–8 (NIV)

6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.

So the angel tells them don’t you remember what Jesus told you?

and He reframes this broken situation and he tells of everything that happens and he does not say that the fact this had to happen is this amazing thing, (altough its amazing that Jesus did die for us)

But he says don’t you realize how God was using and moving in the brokenness?

and the fact that from the moment sin entered the world, God had a plan to redeem it.

And if God did it on a big stage like this, and if he did it on a cross, one of the darkest places in human history, don’t you believe He can do it in our lives .

Because while our life may have broken pieces and these broken pieces are not good, what if God wants to make something new.

Because the beauty of the Easter story is that Jesus rose from the grave, defeating death, brokeness and sin.

And if Jesus would meet us in this place, don’t you believe He will meet us where we are today?

And I am going to end a little differently today, because the worship team is going to come forward, and as they are I have a couple people that are going to help me hand out something.

And as they come around its a broken piece of glass, it is smooth so you shouldn’t get cut.

But as we get ready to close, I just want you to look at this piece of glass in your hands, and I want to ask… Are you broken this morning?

Because we can try to fix it ourselves, we can look other places and find something else to fix it, we can even try to use the broken pieces to fix the broken pieces.

But I think where God wants us this morning is not keeping the broken pieces in our hands but laying them at His feet.

And maybe this morning we feel the weight of our brokeness, maybe we need a reminder,

but as we look at this broken glass I want it to be a reminder that God used the most broken place in human history (the cross) to bring the greatest redemption and hope.

And if God can do that in this story, don’t you think He can do it in yours.

And let me just finish in this last verse (verse 12) because the woman ran to tell the disciples (these guys who followed Jesus) and most of them went I do not believe that this is true. But there is one disciple named Peter and look what he does:

Luke 24:12 (NIV)

12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

You know as we close I am not niaeve that Easter is one of those holidays you might get dragged to, or maybe your just kind of curious, or you kind of just go because its Easter and thats what you do.

But if your there, can I just point at this passage for a second.

Because Peter wanted to see what happened for himself.

maybe today this sounds ridiculous, or you are kind of in this place where your going okay so what?

Can I just encourage you to do what Peter does to come and see what happened?

And not just today, but start to allow this to be something that you do regularly

Because Jesus meets us in the brokeness,

He meets us when its dark,

He meets us in the wondering.

And the amazing news is He will meet you in this story this morning, and when God meets you your life is made new.

Pray for those who want to start up or start over,