He is RISEN!! Have you let them know?
Isaiah 26: 6-9
JOHN 20: 1-18
APRIL 5, 2026 EASTER
HE IS RISEN … <<HE IS RISEN INDEED>> A joyful greeting on this day that offers us a conclusion of the Lenten Season of 2026 … have you used these 40 days to get closer to God? Have you benefited from these last 40 days by adopting the teaching of Jesus Christ into your life while shoving the world away from you? Have you let those around you know that you serve a RISEN SAVIOR … HE’s in the WORLD TODAY … walks with you & talks with you … do you talk with Him? Have you told them about Jesus Christ?
Just beyond the gate a question was asked by a servant woman … YOU there… you were with HIM? We all know what his answer was … it was a predicted answer having to do with a rooster crowing. He replied … WOMAN I don’t know HIM!
The story continues … because at the same moment in time Jesus is answering those who tied His hands behind His back and focused on beating Him and spitting on Him … Jesus has just said, “I have spoken openly to the world. Ask those who heard what I told them.”
We can discover what He said … if we have forgotten or never noticed we can discover what He said by opening up any Bible to Matthew’s Gospel … there was a gathering of folks on a beautiful hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee. He stood before them sharing that the world’s PEACEMAKERS are the humans God considers as God’s children. Some of those who heard Him and paid attention remembered Him saying, “Therefore you should treat people in the same way that you want people to treat you … THIS IS THE LAW of God. Watch out for FALSE PROPHETS … you will know them by their fruit. Every good tree produces good fruit and every rotten tree produces bad fruit.” Those questioning Him that day never asked the witnesses of that message on the hillside for their opinions about Jesus the Christ.
Perhaps Jesus took a deep breath at that moment trying to remember all who had heard Him and someone in that moment pointed an accusatory finger at the man named Peter who once was named Simon saying, “You there … you are ONE OF THEM TOO!” Cowering and moving quickly away Peter screamed, “MAN! I AM NOT!”
Deep in thought and still feeling the sting of the slaps from the armored unnamed men who had pushed Him to the ground and tied His hands behind His back whispering curses at this man whose message was love and peace … Jesus heard them ask, “Are you God’s Son, then? And, Jesus replied softly … “You say that I am.”
Remembering the moment when He spoke openly to the world hoping that history would hear Him and that humanity would follow Him … I am sure all of you with us this day remember and hold onto His words from the day when the 72 disciples returned joyously to be with Him after having gone out into their communities sharing God’s Good News. In fact we can read “at that very moment Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed Father this brings you happiness.” And then that unnamed legal expert stood up to test Jesus just as his inquisitors behind the barbed wire of his day … hidden from public view were doing in those moments … testing Jesus … in derision attempting to catch Jesus and take Him down.
The question … “Teacher, what must I do to gain eternal life?” Ah, there is a question for this day in the year 2026 but we are remembering that day … those days … that Holy Week and in the moment Jesus clarified an answer to a direct question … no vagueness … just as he did to his earthy critics and judges who had planned his execution, Jesus turned the words around to the questioner …”What is written in the law?” And, the lawyer caught his breath before replying … “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, AND love your neighbor as yourself.”
At that moment … those standing there came and said to Peter, “You must be one of THEM … the way you talk …your accent … you are not one of us … you are one of THEM … a Galilean … ARREST HIM … LOCK HIM UP … SEND HIM AWAY … HE REJECTS CAESAR … HE DEFILES OUR RELIGIOUS LEADERS … And, Peter cursed and swore saying I DO NOT KNOW THAT MAN! I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT! And, the Rooster crowed for a third time.
Jesus continued … telling the lawyer who had just said that to gain ETERNAL LIFE one must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself and Jesus had replied … “YOU HAVE ANSWERED CORRECTLY do this and you will live – have eternal life in heaven one day.” But the expert thinking his neighbors were only those folks who looked, sounded, and agreed politically with himself and lived in the same communities as he did pushed Jesus asking, “And who is my neighbor.”
Perhaps Jesus knew Peter had heard that rooster crow the three times … perhaps he looked at those powerful religious leaders aligned with Caesar more than with God and realized that what he told the lawyer that day when He was feeling joy … when He had spoken openly to the world before those 72 disciples and other witnesses and that lawyer – hoping in these last moments that He had been heard as He shared the message of the Good Samaritan. He taught how the powerful religious leader had scorned the naked man who had been beaten and left near death by crossing the road and turning his back on him. The Levite, a connected person to those in power hurried across the road but it was “The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’
On that day there was a question in the air … a challenging question asked of Jesus Christ … oh by the way today we remember it is Easter … Jesus, HE IS RISEN <<He is Risen Indeed>> Joy is in the air … together we sense God’s loving rescue of humanity … our salvation … God’s ultimate love … feels so good doesn’t it when we shout out and raise the rafters of this church HE IS RISEN <<HE IS RISEN INDEED!>>
The challenging question before Jesus that day with the 72 disciples, the crowd, and the inquiring actually that lawyer was not simply a curious man but someone who wanted to put down and dismiss the concepts of loving ALL neighbors, peace rather than violence, healing and caring for the poor … he was all about himself. The question my friends had to do with WHAT MUST I DO TO GAIN ETERNAL LIFE” and Jesus offered the story of the Good Samaritan because the essential answers to the question were to love the Lord your God with ALL your heart … ALL your being … ALL your strength and with ALL your mind AND … AND … TO LOVE ALL of YOUR NEIGHBORS as YOURSELF. So as the lesson of that Samaritan who crossed the road to help the beaten man near death by using all he had … his money … to bring the beaten man back and make him whole was concluding … Jesus answered an ESSENTIAL question about gaining eternal life … an essential Easter question by the way … a question that Annas and Caiaphas and the chief priests and elders all of whom had their television platforms and selfies with the Roman leadership something they needed to hear … who meets the requirement to eternal life Jesus said those who are loving their neighbors as themselves … NOT the powerful priest in his fancy power suit and large congregation … NOT the politically connected Levite BUT the Samaritan who crossed the road. The cynical lawyer figured it out that day … we should have figured it out if we hear Jesus and pay attention and listen and read, which was the one? His answer … THE ONE WHO DEMONSTRATED MERCY … Jesus said GO AND DO LIKEWISE … Salvation … following Jesus … connecting the dots to God … nothing has changed … we are here in church on EASTER. The question still is valid … is Jesus Christ God’s Son … Pilate thought so, the religious leaders taunted Him and probably some feared that He was because of how they treated Him … but what about you.
This morning … we remember those women who came to place spices in the tomb … broken hearted, worried about their future, scared perhaps not as frightened as the disciples who were behind locked doors … Peter had realized his actions of denial and had gone crying uncontrollably at his denial of Christ … Peter and John met up with Mary Magdalene in the morning when she found the stone had been moved … they hurried to the tomb but didn’t understand the Scripture so the two guys ran away to hide behind locked doors but the women returned … Mary stood outside near the tomb, crying. As she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb. She saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and one at the foot. The angels asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” She replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.” As soon as she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”
We know the rest of the story … they ran to the disciples … these women were the first evangelists declaring HE IS RISEN <<HE IS RISEN INDEED>> Soon they would be with Him and they would be declaring HE IS RISEN <<HE IS RISEN INDEED>> and the GOOD NEWS STORY would be told.
So, on this Easter morning … if Jesus asked you … WHO ARE YOU LOOKING FOR … how would you answer … if someone pointed a finger at you and said, “You are with Him” would you joyfully answer yes I am HE IS RISEN <<HE IS RISEN INDEED>> or would you attempt to discard His teaching … choosing to oppose what He said and aligning with the world. WHO HAVE YOU TOLD? HOW ARE YOU LIVING? HAVE YOU DENIED HIM … once, twice, three times or more?
We are all past due to celebrate with great joy God’s love for us … the truth is that we celebrate on Easter HE IS RISEN <<HE IS RISEN INDEED>> and then we need to go into the world telling THEM and crossing the road to help anyone whoever they are in this world who are bruised, battered, mocked, rejected or hurting because we are the ones embracing God’s salvation and loving God with all of our heart, with all of our being, with all of our strength, and with all of our mind and loving all of our neighbors as ourselves. THE MESSAGE of EASTER … HE LIVES! AMEN