Easter Sunday reflection on the fear and great joy of taking the next step in faith.
Jeremiah 31:1-6 The Joyful Return of the Exiles
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 A Song of Victory
Colossians 3:1-4 The New Life in Christ
Matthew 28:1-10 The Resurrection of Jesus
Opening
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrive at the tomb as the first day of the week is dawning. I imagine they arrive in grief. Heavy, exhausted grief. The kind that doesn’t sleep well and wakes up early.
Did they have a plan? Matthew doesn’t tell us they brought spices or ointments, that’s Mark and Luke. Matthew simply says they came to see the tomb. Perhaps they had no plan at all, other than the deep, unshakeable conviction that not going was never an option. You show up. That’s what you do.
And yet the obstacles were real. There was an enormous stone. These burial stones could weigh close to a ton. There were Roman guards, posted there deliberately. The chief priests and Pharisees had gone to Pilate and asked for guards, because they remembered Jesus saying he would rise after three days. They wanted to prevent any claim of resurrection. So the tomb was sealed and watched. There was nothing these two women could practically do.
And they came anyway.
They Came to Tend
You know how that is, don’t you. Sometimes you show up even when you don’t know exactly what you can do. You show up because something in you, something shaped by years of living and caring and paying attention, tells you that your presence matters. That being there is itself the thing. You may not be recognized for it. You do it anyway, because it is simply the right thing to do.
This kind of knowing grows out of experience. It comes from lives spent in care, raising children, sitting with the dying, holding communities together, keeping the doors open when attendance is thin, bringing warm coats to those who are cold, reading to someone who hasn’t had a visitor in weeks. You learn, through the practice of care, what matters. And what matters is showing up.
Women throughout history have shown up, and have rarely received much recognition for doing so.
Which makes it all the more striking that these two women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, are according to scripture, the first witnesses of the risen Christ and the first missionaries of the church. That is not a minor footnote. At the hinge moment of the Christian story, the resurrection, God chose women to carry the news.
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’ most devoted followers. She, along with other women including Joanna and Susanna, traveled with Jesus and supported his ministry. A follower, a witness, someone who had given her life to this movement. And on Easter morning she is the one chosen to carry the news that changes everything.
There is something the church has always known but not always honoured, that the faithful work of women, so often unrecognized, is not peripheral. It is foundational. And the men who show up alongside them, also faithfully, know exactly what I am talking about.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks to a people who have survived devastation, who came through the sword, who wandered seeking rest, who wondered if they had been forgotten. And God says to them, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I will build you again. There will be dancing. There will be planting. There will be return and renewal. That promise is not only for ancient Israel. It is for every community that has persistently and faithfully kept showing up. That vision is made real, one act of care at a time, by people like the ones in this room.
The Intensity of That Morning
What began as a morning of grief suddenly became something else entirely.
They are walking toward the tomb in the early dawn, carrying nothing but their love and their sorrow, when the earth itself moves. An angel of the Lord descended from heaven, rolled back the stone, that enormous, immovable stone, and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning. His clothing white as snow.
In the space of a few minutes these women went from quiet grief to earthquake, from darkness to lightning, from a sealed tomb to an open one. Whatever they had expected from that morning, it was not this.
And look at what the earthquake did to the guards. Strong men. Trained soldiers. Men whose entire purpose was to stand firm under pressure. They shook with fear and became, Matthew tells us, like dead men. Paralyzed. Undone. Completely non-functional.
The women were afraid too. But here is the difference, they kept going. They stood there in the presence of this blazing angelic messenger and they listened. And when the angel said do not be afraid, they chose, somehow, to act on that.
He is not here. He has been raised, as he said. Now go quickly and tell his disciples.
He has been raised. Go and tell.
There was no framework for this. No precedent. No way to fully understand what had just happened. And yet they turned around and ran.
Matthew gives us one of the most honest and psychologically true lines in all of scripture. They left the tomb, he says, with fear and great joy. Not fear, and then later joy. Not joy that overcame the fear. Both. Simultaneously. Fear and great joy, running together in the same heartbeat.
In his book Falling Upward, the theologian Richard Rohr brings to light a feeling he calls bright sadness, that particular quality of light that comes when joy and sorrow are held together, when we have been through enough of life to know that the two are never entirely separate. It is the wisdom that comes not from avoiding the hard things, but from going through them. From falling, and discovering that the falling itself was somehow also rising.
Matthew captures something similar in a single phrase. They left the tomb with fear and great joy. Two things at once. Complexity held together rather than resolved. That is Easter.
And then, on the road, in the middle of all of that, suddenly Jesus meets them. Not at the tomb. Not waiting calmly at the destination. He meets them on the way, in the middle of the running, in the middle of the fear and the joy and the not-yet-understanding.
Greetings, he says. And they fell at his feet and worshipped him.
And then again, do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers and sisters.
Twice the same instruction, first from the angel, then from Jesus himself. As if God understood that this was not a one-time reassurance. As if the fear kept returning, as it does, and needed to be met more than once. The women were never told to wait until the fear passed. They were met in their fear, told not to be afraid, and sent anyway.
And they went.
Brave Enough
The women ran from that tomb afraid, and they went anyway. That’s what courage looks like in a human life. Not the absence of fear. Not certainty about the outcome. Just the decision to keep moving, because not going was never an option.
I see that courage here, in this room, on this Easter morning.
This little congregation continues meeting, planning, working together, caring for one another and for this community — all without guarantees. Reimagining what it means to be the church, what it means to be a viable and living presence in this town. That is not a small thing. That is an act of resurrection faith.
By the world’s measure of what matters, size, numbers, cultural weight, you might be considered too small to count. A stone the builders might pass over. And yet here you are. A cornerstone of this community. Present, faithful, building bridges across the language divide, showing up for the whole community, not just your own. That is not the posture of a community in decline. That is the posture of a community with a future.
Paul writes to the Colossians, your life is hidden with Christ in God. Hidden, but held. Held in something that does not let go. And perhaps that is also a word for what it means to be a minority community, rooted and persisting in a place you love. Not lost. Not forgotten. Risking to remain. Doing the faithful work whose full fruit you may never live to see, and doing it anyway, because it is the right thing to do.
That’s legacy. Not buildings or budgets, but the practice of showing up, passed from one generation to the next.
Go and Keep Showing Up
The angel said it. Then Jesus said it again. Do not be afraid.
Twice. Because once is never quite enough. Because Easter does not promise us a life without earthquakes. It promises us something better — that we will not be left alone in them. That love will meet us on the road, in the middle of the running, before we have it all figured out.
The Marys knew how to feel everything — the grief, the terror, the confusion, the joy — and keep moving anyway. They didn’t wait until the fear passed. They felt it all, held it all, and went anyway. That is wisdom. That is the kind of emotional courage that comes from lives lived in faithfulness, from showing up so many times that you have learned, deep in your bones, that you can bear more than you think you can.
You know how to do that too.
You are the ones who came to the tomb. You are the ones who show up for each other, for this community, for this church, without guarantees, without a perfect plan. And that faithfulness, that steady, persistent, unglamorous, holy showing up, matters more than you may ever fully know.
You are not a footnote. You are not too small, too old, too few. You are, like those two women on that first Easter morning, exactly who was needed, exactly where you were needed, at exactly the right moment. The work you do — the visits, the care, the presence, the bridge-building, the community-tending — that work is woven into something larger than any of us can see. It is part of a story that does not end.
Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Hidden, but held. Held in a love that does not let go, that does not forget, that does not count you too small or too tired or too uncertain to matter. A steadfast love that endures forever.
His steadfast love endures forever. The Psalm says it twice too. Because some things need to be said more than once.
This is the day the Lord has made. This real, full, complicated, beautiful day. With its fear and its joy running together. With its empty tomb and its open road. With its small congregation gathered in faithfulness in Cowansville, tending to one another and to this community they love.
This day. These people. This place.
Go and keep showing up. Christ will meet you on the way.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Showing Up: Invitations for the Week
The two Marys didn’t wait for perfect conditions. They showed up, afraid and uncertain, and the rest is the hinge of Christian history. Here are some ways to carry that Easter courage into your week, one step at a time.
Show up for someone on the margins. Think of one person in your community who is isolated, overlooked, or struggling, such as a neighbour, a senior, someone new to town. Make contact this week. A visit, a phone call, a note left at a door. Small actions are often better than large gestures.
Notice who is doing the unglamorous work and say so. In every community there are people keeping the lights on, making the coffee, taking the notes, doing the behind-the-scenes work that holds everything together. Name one of them this week. Thank them specifically. Let them know their contribution makes a difference.
Take one step toward justice in your own backyard. Justice doesn’t always look like a march or a movement. Sometimes it looks like buying local when you can afford to, speaking up when someone is left out of the conversation, or choosing to spend your time and money in ways that strengthen your community rather than drain it. What is one concrete step available to you this week?
Cross one bridge. The Cowansville congregation is building connections across the language divide, English reaching toward French, minority reaching toward majority. Where in your own life is there a divide you could begin to cross? A conversation you have been avoiding? A community different from your own that you could step toward? Take one small step this week.
Tend to the earth. These women came to tend. We are called to tend as well, not only to each other but to the creation that sustains us. This week, do one thing that expresses loving care for the natural world. Plant something. Pick up litter on your street. Reduce one waste. Walk somewhere instead of driving. Let it be a prayer.
Sit with someone else’s sorrow. This week, resist the impulse to fix or minimize someone’s pain. Instead, simply be present with it. Listen without an agenda. Let your presence be enough.
Carry the bright sadness honestly. We can hold fear and joy at the same time. You may grieve what is lost while celebrating what remains. This week, when complexity arises in the news, in your relationships, in your own heart, resist the pressure to resolve it too quickly. Practice holding it all, the way the Marys did, and keep moving anyway.
An invitation to return to each day:
Where am I showing up today? What is available to me right now?
Let that be enough. Christ will meet you on the way.