Today, we celebrate Easter, a day of resurrection, a day of miracles, a day of faith. It’s a day when we proclaim what God declares forever in Jesus Christ – that Christ, the light of the world, shining on every corner of creation, will never be overcome by death or darkness or height or depth or powers or principalities or rulers or authorities or anything else in all creation. The light of the world shines on every corner of the world, even on you and me, even now.

Alleluia! Thanks be to God.

I grew up celebrating Easter, but I didn’t attend many sunrise services; it was only during my college years that I began rising before dawn to shower and shave, put on a suit and tie, and walk out of my dorm room to wait for my friend, Stuart, to pull up beside me in his old pickup truck. I remember an early morning when he greeted me with hot coffee, served in a glass mason jar, which I struggled to balance on the drive down a bumpy country road to St. Mary’s Parish as the first shadows of morning turned from dark black to blue-gray, and you could begin to make out solitary white barns across old tobacco fields, their rows nowadays filled with seedlings of soy beans or corn stalks.

It was a half hour spent in silence except for the truck’s old engine. We pulled in the gravel lot to park and join a procession of churchgoers, waiting to go inside the small chapel, with the cold of the early spring morning biting through our layers of cotton and wool. Finally, the Paschal fire was kindled outside the door, and in a blaze of incense and smoke, the flame grew to illuminate the red painted doors to the church, as well as the faces of those who beheld the miracle in the dark: a fire was kindled. Candles were lit, and we cheerfully sang, “Alleluia!” and filed into that welcoming, warm, timeworn house of worship.

Seeing the sun rise on Easter morning helps us make a clear connection between the new light of the new day and God’s new life and new reality, a gift made known to us in Jesus Christ.

It’s a lesson first learned by a lonely woman who also rose early one morning, on the first day of the week, so that she might go to see the tomb where Jesus had been laid. In rising early, she was going – not just to visit a quiet place one Sunday morning and listen to the birds wake up – but to stand vigil, to stay awhile, to take everything in, and to begin to mourn, to wail and weep at the brutal injustice of the world. That first Easter morning, as light peaked through the clouds and the tops of the trees, Mary was prepared to allow herself to begin to feel the depths of grief and anger that had been churning inside her since Good Friday.

But Jesus was not in the tomb.

The stone had been rolled away.

And Mary ran for help, thinking someone had stolen and hidden the body. And after Peter and John saw for themselves, they left her in the garden, and she was alone again. Even the help she had called for did not stay with her. Even her friends left her side.

It looked like she would be alone in the garden, just as Jesus carried the cross by himself days before. No justice, no victory, no hope, not even friendship. Nothing good to look forward to, nothing to soften the pain of loss.

When have you felt like that? Have you ever been so mired in your own grief that nothing promised to set you free? Was there anything that got you out of your doldrums and depression? Was it the slow movement of time, or the quiet reassurance that life goes on, or perhaps new friends join you on your journey, or new joys presenting themselves to you that helped you cope? Was it some accumulated distance separating you from a painful moment, or a change of scenery that helped put things in perspective? Or maybe you can recall one time when you were more suddenly shaken out of yourself, out of your self-absorption, out of your trouble and torment. Sometimes out of nowhere, a winter’s frozen despair can miraculously erode under the gentle rains of springtime.

That happened for me once. It was a late April evening, almost two decades ago now, when I found myself walking the halls with elation, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in half a year. The days ahead were suddenly full of possibility; excitement permeated each thought and action. It was a novel feeling to me, after having spent so long without it. As I look back on that moment, I realize clearly that nothing had changed from the days before; my circumstances, responsibilities, friendships, and interests were just as they had been. But all of a sudden, I could see things in a new way – somehow warmer, more welcoming, more beautiful. I was filled with wonder.

It came out the blue, but I had spent months pushing to get to this place emotionally, arguing with my inclinations and assumptions, setting goals for myself, forcing myself out of my bubble and into the world, cold as it was that winter. I had worked hard to help others, listen to my friends’ problems, care for neighbors, and grow into the person I was becoming.

But elation proved elusive, and dread overshadowed joy. Months of effort and argument failed to make me whole. Instead, I was eventually persuaded by something else that lay outside of me, which somehow broke through and spoke to the deepest part of me, shifting my perspective, helping me to feel differently and to approach each day with an open heart. I felt newly alive. Life felt newly alive. 

Our lives are limited by our adherence to gloom and worry – whether voluntary or involuntary. The Easter miracle is that Mary, the solitary woman at the tomb, was able to bear witness to the new life that comes from God. In the midst of her plans to mourn and wail, she was able to hear a new and unexpected message from the Source of all good things: The One for whom she was looking was not lost or taken or silenced or forgotten, but was standing right in front of her. Christ’s compassion was with her. His recognition of her as a person with whom to keep company, his determination that she was someone worthy of love, were not taken away. He was still within reach.

And even now, as we hear news of volatility and disarray all around us, Christ is still within reach, because Christ is risen. The Lord is right before you for you to see for yourself.

Do you simply believe that God is speaking to you, telling you that not all is lost, that there is something important you need to do this week, and that the strength and hope you crave are right in front of you, if you would just open your eyes to see God’s new life and new reality, freely available to us in Jesus Christ?

It just takes a shift in perspective. God helps you see the world more fully, if you allow it.

So I pray you let this Easter hope take root in your heart, like the herbs of a garden waking up from winter, like the flowers and blossoms all around us. This lesson can withstand long winter nights and cold winter days, when the possibility of renewal seems far off and the fragrance of spring is almost forgotten.

I pray you let the promise of Easter shine on your spirit, so that whatever comes your way in this world full of shocks and surprises, you can weather it. You can flourish in it. You can find your friends and your future in it anyway.

I pray you open your eyes to Christ standing before you, so that wherever you go and wherever you are, you would know with conviction that you have Christ always as your companion on the way.

Alleluia. Amen.