Resurrection Sunday

 

Inspired by Jacob Sherif's Easter Sunday message 2026.

 

The story of Jesus has the power to transform our story, John 20 v 1-10. In the beginning was God, John starts with this in his gospel and is quoting Genesis 1. Jesus’ story eclipses creation. Jesus is here to undo everything sin has destroyed, Jesus becomes personally present, in the flesh, to confront sin and destroy that which has destroyed all of creation. Jesus is presented on the Day of preparation of the lamb for Passover, day 6 of the week. It is finished. On the 7^th day He rested in the grave. It’s now the 1^st day of the week, it’s a new creation week, it’s an entirely new reality that has been born. The darkness of sin, death and destruction is defeated as the Light of the World rises. 1 John 2 v 8; “the darkness is passing away and the true light is shining.” When Lazarus rose from the dead he came out in his grave clothes but for Jesus these are left lying there useless, orderly, never to be needed again. This good news came to the overwhelmed not the overjoyed.

Mary is crying, weeping outside the tomb. Grief is the natural emotional response to loss. She had put her hope in the one who had transformed her. She is grasping to the last tangible thing she had of that time - Jesus body. Jesus personally encounters someone in their deepest grief. She’s still clinging to the old reality, but the new Gardener is here in the new garden. John 10 – the Good Shepherd. My sheep know my voice, and I call them by name. It’s not wrong to grieve, we grieve because we have lost. Death and loss do not have the final word, it feels like it, it seems like it but that’s not Truth. He meets us in our grief. Joy may remain for the night but joy comes in the morning. This is an invitation to you, when you are walking in the night and the night seems like it will never end. You can be sure dawn is on the way, the sun rose, the Son rose and closed the night on death reigning. He knows you by name, walking with you to the new morning. If all is lost and all is destroyed, at the end of time, all will be restored. Only in an encounter with Jesus, the risen Lord will your grief be transformed by joy.

 

My brother-in-law died by suicide almost 4 years ago. He committed suicide. Take your pick, some people want to say it the gentler way, for me, the shock, tragedy and trauma of that act feels like it deserves the word “commit;” it seems to lend a little more gravity to the heinous act. Whichever may be more palatable to you, neither were palatable to me. Our world was shattered beyond recognition that morning and that ripping asunder of our lives is the subject for another day because this brief musing is about how my story has been transformed by the Son who rose, his resurrection power which lives in me has granted to me beauty instead of ashes and a garment of praise instead of mourning.

 

We prophetically called our daughter Rinnah, I was 29 weeks pregnant when we buried my husband’s best friend, his Irish twin. The dichotomy of carrying new life and my husband and his brother and brother-in-law and cousins carrying their brother on their shoulders almost ripped me apart. Rinnah is the Hebrew word for Joy in Psalm 30 v 5 where is says that weeping may tarry for a night, but joy comes with the morning. Our little joy was born in the morning on the morning of her Granny’s birthday, the joy of her birth contrasting as sharply as a ying-yang symbol with the dark night of our soul. And also, co-existing side by side with it in such sharp reality and pain that sometimes it was overshadowed and mostly it was so uniquely different and abstract from our grief that it ran parallel like train tracks. Psalm 30 v 5 was a promise we carried closely and declared with the fruit of our bodies.

 

Two of the thousands of questions we asked, of which there are no firm answers but the questions still deserved to be asked, actually they screamed to be asked from our very depths, and as a side note, please give those questioners the honour of being heard even though you can’t answer either, the gift of listening and being heard is perhaps what’s needed most in grief. Two of those thousand questions was “where was God in the dark night of his soul?” “Did God call his name like He called Mary’s in the garden?”

 

I have one story, it’s not my story but I got to briefly and insignificantly walk through part of it, a woman, probably my age now but then I thought she was much older, died by suicide. She was the sister of someone in the church, and she had come herself sometimes. She put herself under the train that runs by the beach. I still shudder when I hear it coming. The pain catches my heart physically. I of course hadn’t encountered suicide then like I have now and the raw grief and tragedy was removed from me then, now in contrast, it can’t be separated from my lived experience.  My brother worked in that town, and he heard people’s stories and retold us. Three different people saw her before she jumped, three different people called her name, three different people saw something in her before she did it that screamed at them; there’s something dreadfully wrong and they tried to call her. She didn’t listen. We heard about three, there may have been more. Her story is one of tragedy, but the beauty woven into it is that “He called her name.” He gave her every opportunity to respond, she didn’t reach to Him but the Risen Son called her in her overwhelm and wanted to offer her resurrection. And because His word is true, I know that he gave my brother-in-law a way out, He called his name. He offered him hope and new life and resurrection power. God is no respecter of persons, or he shows no partiality Act 10 v 34, that means that I have the choice to believe the word or not and believe that God says he gives a way out under temptation; a way of escape 1 Corinthians 10 v 13. That was and is such a comfort to me, there is much sorrow in it but the com-fort has been the strength that has sustained me.

 

The choice to believe God’s word over my pain and my feelings and my perception of what happened was an invitation by the Father to me, I’ll not sugar coat it, it was easier to believe my feelings and raw agony sometimes. To let the thousands of questions reign. I had to renew my mind to the truth that my God reached out to my brother-in-law in his darkest night and instead of choosing the resurrection power available to him now, he woke up to a new dawn, a new reality, an eternal Morning. He saw the goodness of God in its entirety, and I know that God had lots of tears to wipe from his eyes as he saw clearly what he had missed and heard his name being called as the overwhelm disappeared in the Light.

 

I encountered Jesus in my raw grief, in the physical agony of that level of heart shredding - I looked into the face of Jesus. I saw him cry and saw the tears roll down His face. I have never felt more understood and loved. That encounter transformed my grief into a heart that is no longer broken. I still bear scars but weeping lasted for the (long) night and joy did come in the morning.