Waking Up After Easter

Introduction

Let me ask you a question this morning, and I want you to answer honestly. How many of you fell asleep in church last week on Easter Sunday? We’re among friends. If you’re afraid to raise your hand, close just your eyes so nobody will see you raise your hand.

No, I don’t actually expect you to raise your hands, and I hope none of you fell asleep during the service last week. If you did, I’m sure it was during my long-winded sermon. Don’t feel bad if you did, you’re in good company. The disciples fell asleep too.

But here’s the thing. The disciples didn’t just fall asleep in church. They fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, while Jesus was sweating drops of blood, just a short distance away.

He came back three times, THREE TIMES, and found them sleeping. He’d been gone at the very most maybe forty minutes. Most of us can’t even make it through a church potluck without nodding off in our folding chairs.

And then, three days later, the women arrive at the tomb, just after sunrise. And this is the part that should stop us cold, while the disciples are still in bed sleeping, still behind locked doors, still processing their grief, their fears and their failures.

The women are already moving. They’re awake. They’re out the door. They have their spices. They’re asking each other who will roll away the stone.

Easter happened while the disciples were asleep. And the question I want to ask us today is simply this: “Are we still asleep?”

This morning begins a sermon series we’re calling Stay Awake. We’re going to spend the rest of 2026, all the way through Christmas, asking what it means to be a people who are genuinely, attentively, courageously awake.

Awake to God. Awake to each other. Awake to the world. Awake to what the Resurrection demands of how we live.

But we start here, in Mark 16, in the chaos and wonder of the first Easter morning, because you can’t understand the call to wake up unless you first understand just how deeply everyone had fallen asleep.

The Women Came Early

Mark 16:1-2 tells us

Mark 16:1–2 CSB

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they could go and anoint him. 2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise.

Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb. Very early, at sunrise. I want you to feel the weight of that.

These women have just watched the person they loved most be arrested, beaten, crucified, and buried. They have spent the Sabbath in observance, which means they had to spend an entire day, holding their grief still, while the law required them to do nothing.

And the very first moment they are allowed to move, they moved. They don’t wait for someone to organize a committee. They don’t post about it. They don’t say, “Let’s circle back next week.” They get up before the sun, buy what they need, and go.

There’s something profound about people who move toward grief instead of away from it. Most of us, when we face something hard and heartbreaking and unresolved, do the perfectly understandable human thing: we avoid it. We scroll our phones. We get very busy. We reorganize our homes, garages, and shops.

But these women walked toward the tomb. And what they found when they got there changed everything. The stone was already rolled away.

A young man in white was sitting where the body should have been. And he said to them: “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.”

He has risen. He is not here.

The most important announcement in all of human history was made to three women who got out of bed early on a Sunday morning. The disciples, meanwhile, were behind locked doors.

And this is not an accident. This is the text showing us something. The ones who were awake, who moved toward rather than away, who showed up even when they weren’t sure what they’d find, they saw it first.

The Disciples Behind Locked Doors

Luke 24:9-11 picks up the story.

Luke 24:9–11 CSB

9 Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest. 10 Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things. 11 But these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women.

Luke mentions, almost in passing, a massive understatement! The disciples did not believe the women because their “words seemed like [nonsense] to them.”

Nonsense. Idle tales. Hysteria. That’s what the disciples called the first report of the Resurrection. I’ve always found that, both, deeply humanizing and deeply convicting at the same time.

Humanizing because, well…of course they didn’t believe it, dead people staying dead is the most reliable fact in the universe.

And Convicting because they had been with Jesus for three years. He had told them this would happen. More than once!! He made it crystal clear! They just, weren’t listening.

Now, Peter does eventually run to the tomb. Give him credit for that. But notice what he does when he gets there:

Luke 24:12 CSB

12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. When he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen cloths. So he went away, amazed at what had happened.

He goes away “amazed at what had happened.” The Greek word translated “amazed” means: “To be astonished,” with an expressed attitude of criticism, doubt or even censure and rejection.

That’s what spiritual sleepiness looks like. It’s not always outright unbelief. Sometimes it’s just… perpetual uncertainty. Eternal wondering. Never quite committing to what we’ve seen or felt.

Always keeping the question open so we don’t have to do anything about the answer. We’re very good at this, by the way. It’s practically a spiritual discipline in modern Christianity. We say, “it’s okay to question God” when what we really mean is “we’re trying very hard to prevent any meaningful transformation.”

Then Luke 24:36-37 gives us that extraordinary scene in the evening.

Luke 24:36–37 CSB

36 As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst. He said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost.

What do the disciples do?

They are startled and frightened, thinking they see a ghost!!

Jesus told them He would rise from the dead three times!! They should have expected this! Yet, Jesus responds with what might be the most patient words anyone has ever said:

Luke 24:38–39 CSB

38 “Why are you troubled?” he asked them. “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”

Then Luke records a detail so amazing, so surreal, that it blows me away every time I read it.

Luke 24:40–41 CSB

40 Having said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 But while they still were amazed and in disbelief because of their joy, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”

Luke 24:42–43 CSB

42 So they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence.

The Risen Lord of the Universe ate fish with them, just to prove a point. He didn’t appear as some spirit, as blinding light on a golden throne. He appeared as the incarnate human being and ate lunch with His disciples.

He met them exactly where they were, frightened, confused, locked in a room, full of doubts, and barely awake. But, He showed up anyway. Not because they deserved it. Not because they had it all figured out. He showed up simply because grace is like that.

What Easter Demands

Here is what I want us to ponder over this morning: the Resurrection is not just a doctrine to affirm. It is an alarm clock.

And I know that’s not how we tend to treat it. For many of us, Easter is an annual event. A beautiful, meaningful, and sacred annual event. But still, just an event. We come, we sing, the lilies are lovely, we go to brunch with our friends and family.

And then, life picks up where it left off. The Resurrection gets filed under “important theological facts” and then we just move on, back to our normal daily tasks.

But, that is not what the disciples did after they finally understood. The same people who were hiding behind locked doors on Easter Sunday were, fifty days later, standing in the streets of Jerusalem declaring the Resurrection at the top of their lungs.

The same Peter who walked away from the empty tomb “amazed,” later healed a man at the temple gate and preached to thousands. Something woke them up. Something radically transformed them.

What changed? The Spirit came. And the Spirit is, among other things, God’s way of saying: “The tomb is empty. You cannot go back to sleep.”

Paul puts it bluntly in Romans 13:11-12:

Romans 13:11–12 CSB

11 Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

The hour has come to wake up from our slumber. Paul wrote that nearly two thousand years ago. If anything, the urgency has compounded.

So what does waking up look like? Let me offer you three things from these texts.

First: Waking up means moving toward, not away. The women went to the tomb. They didn’t know what they’d find. They didn’t have all the answers worked out.

They had grief and spices and questions, and they showed up anyway. Waking up means showing up to the hard things in our life, in our community, in the world. Not because we’re brave or have it all put together. Rather, because we’re awake enough to know it matters!

Second: Waking up means being willing to have our foundations rebuilt. The disciples called the women’s report nonsense, because it didn’t fit what they knew to be true about how the world worked. Dead people stay dead! We all know that!

Except, sometimes God does something that doesn’t fit with what we know to be true. And in those moments, we have a choice:

We can call it nonsense and go back to sleep, or we can lean in and say, “Wait. What just happened?” Awake people stay curious. They hold their assumptions loosely. They remain genuinely open to surprise.

Third: Waking up means receiving a grace that meets us where we are. Jesus didn’t appear to the disciples only after they had sorted everything out. He didn’t wait until they had stopped being afraid, had complete understanding, and started being useful.

He appeared in the middle of their fear, their confusion, their locked room. He ate fish with them in the chaos of their not-yet-understanding. And that’s the grace we receive too.

Not the grace that comes after we’ve gotten our act together. But, the grace that shows up while we still have, a metaphorical bedhead and yesterday’s despair. We don’t have to be fully awake to receive the grace. But receiving grace should be what wakes us up!!

Conclusion: The Alarm Is Ringing

There’s a phrase in Mark’s Gospel that is easy to just gloss over. But I find it to be a profound statement. After the women hear the announcement at the tomb, after the young man in white tells them that Jesus has risen, he gives them a commission:

Mark 16:7 CSB

7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter,”

“Go tell His disciples and Peter.” As if Peter needs to be named separately. Why? Scholars have debated why for a long time.

I think the best answer is the most obvious one: Peter had denied Jesus three times.

Peter was the one who swore he would never turn away, then infamously turned away, three times, very publicly denying Jesus.

Peter, of all people, had reason to assume that the news of the Resurrection wasn’t for him. He might assume he had slept right through his alarm and the grace train had left the station without him.

But the angel says, specifically, “and Peter.” Go tell Peter. Make sure Peter knows. Peter, who denied Jesus three times. Peter, who slept. Peter, who walked away amazed. Go tell Peter, the Resurrection is for him too.

Each and every one of us could replace Peter with our own name: The alarm clock is ringing loud, and it’s ringing for all of us.

The alarm clock isn’t waiting for the version of us that has it all together. The version of us that never doubts, never drifts or never finds themselves behind a locked door, wondering what happened.

The alarm clock is ringing for the sleepy version of us, the afraid version, the version that sometimes calls the Gospel “nonsense” when life stops making sense. When the moral law seems turned on its head.

You see, the Risen Christ is still showing up in locked rooms. He’s still eating fish to prove He’s real.

He is still patient beyond all reason with those of us who should have believed, but didn’t. With those of us who should have stayed awake, but fell back asleep. With those of us who needed to hear it three times and still aren’t sure.

Here’s what this entire series is about. Here’s what we’re moving towards for the rest of this year:

We don’t have to stay asleep.

The tomb is empty. The stone is rolled away. The grave clothes are folded and left behind. The Shroud of Turin, is still providing earth shaking, scientific proof of His miraculous resurrection.

Christ is risen, not as a metaphor, not as a feeling, not spiritually, but a living, transfigured body. It’s not just an annual event, it changes everything about how we reside in this world, everyday.

This week, before we gather again next Sunday, I want us, myself included here, I want us to ask ourselves with complete open honesty:

Where have I fallen asleep?

Where am I hiding behind a locked door?

Where am I “wondering to myself” when I already have enough evidence to act?

Where is the Resurrection asking something of me to which I haven’t yet surrendered?

It won’t all come together in a week. That’s why we’re taking a whole year. But, we have to start somewhere. And the best place to start is exactly where the women started:

By getting up early and moving toward our fears, our doubts, our wonders, and trusting that when we get there, we’ll find that the stone has already been rolled away.

The alarm clock is ringing. And it has been ringing since that very first Easter Sunday.