Jesus is Risen!

Resurrection is "The Dawn After the Dark" for People, Places, and Things Everywhere

Anne Lamott’s words from my post on Good Friday—“Christians are Easter people living in a Good Friday world”—help us capture the paradox of faith. We fully experience the sorrow of Good Friday, yet we do not remain there. We do not stay in the darkness of death, disillusionment, and despair.

The story is not over.

As Easter people, we live in the tension between the now and the not yet, holding fast to the promise that resurrection has come and will come again.

EASTER SUNDAY TEACHING ON VIDEO
NOTE: Video content is unique. It is not a replica of, but a companion to, this essay.

The Dawn After the Dark

The first Easter morning arrived not with fanfare, but in quiet revelation. Mary Magdalene, still grieving, comes to the tomb while it is still dark. She expects the stench of death but is met with the aroma of life. The stone is rolled away, the body is gone, and a familiar voice—inviting both comfort and fear—calls her name. Her sorrow turns to astonishment, her weeping to wonder.

The resurrection does not erase Good Friday; it transforms it.

For those of us who live in a world still scarred by suffering, injustice, and loss, Easter is not a call to dismiss pain. It does not ask us to pretend suffering does not exist. Rather, it is the audacious declaration that pain will not have the final word.Resurrection is not just a past event—it is the defining reality of our future and the lens through which we view our present. This changes everything.

Living as Easter People

But what does it mean to be Easter people in a Good Friday world? It means we walk through life’s struggles with a different perspective. We feel sorrow, but not as those without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We name the brokenness around us, but we do not believe it has the last word.

We stand at the tombs of our disappointments and declare, “This is not where the story ends.”

To live as Easter people means holding both lament and hope in the same hands. It means allowing resurrection truth to shape how we endure suffering. Jesus Himself modeled this paradox—He wept at the grave of Lazarus even though He knew He would soon raise him. Hope did not erase our Lord's grief. And so it is with us.

Consider the life of the giant sequoia tree. These towering trees endure centuries of wildfires, storms, and drought, yet they continue to grow—often stronger after the flames. Their seeds require fire to germinate, meaning that destruction is not their end, but their beginning. The refining fire that brings destruction is also the very thing that calls forth new life.

This mirrors the truth about resurrection: out of devastation, new life emerges. Like the sequoia, we do not merely survive hardship—we are transformed by it, growing deeper roots and reaching higher toward the light. Isaiah 61:3 speaks of this reality as God gives us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”

The apostle Paul echoes this resilience when he writes, “We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Our trials do not define us, but through them, God cultivates in us the qualities of endurance, character, and hope (Romans 5:3-5).

This is the radical, countercultural nature of Easter people: we live with eyes open to the suffering of the world, yet we remain steadfast in hope. We grieve, but we grieve knowing that the grave is empty. We work for justice, trusting that God’s kingdom will one day fully come. We forgive, not because betrayals and the wounds they create don’t matter, but because the cross and resurrection declare that redemption is possible.

Resurrection in the Everyday

Being Easter people is not just about what we believe; it’s about how we live. Resurrection is not only a future event but a present reality breaking into our here and now. We see glimpses of it in the smallest of ways—the addict who takes their first step toward recovery, the estranged family member who reaches out, the weary soul who finds the strength to get up and face another day.

Every act of love, every moment of grace, every step toward reconciliation, every "I'm sorry" is a foretaste of the resurrection to come.

C.S. Lewis captured this when he wrote: “Christianity is, among other things, a story of how the rightful king has landed… in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”

To live as Easter people is to believe that resurrection power is already at work, undoing the grip of death in our lives and our world. In a world where despair and cynicism often dominate, we are called to be subversive agents of hope. The rightful King has landed—Jesus has already won the decisive battle through His death and resurrection—and now, we are tasked with living as citizens of His kingdom.

This means working against the forces of darkness, standing for truth, embodying love, and showing through our lives that Christ’s victory is not just a theological truth, but a lived reality.

This does not mean our pain disappears. It does not mean we are immune to suffering.

But it does mean that, even in our pain, we can say:

• Love is stronger than hate.

• Light is stronger than darkness.

• Life is stronger than death.

We do not live as those who are waiting for hope to come.

Hope has already come, and it has a name: Jesus.

The Invitation to Hope

The call of Easter people is to embody resurrection hope in a world that desperately needs it. We are the ones who insist that healing is possible, that new beginnings are real, that even in the deepest night, the dawn is coming.

We are called to live as if the resurrection is true—not just in words, but in how we love, how we serve, how we hold onto faith when everything seems lost.

So if you are in a Good Friday season—if you are staring at loss, if the weight of grief feels unbearable—hear this:

The night will not last forever.
The sun will rise.
The stone has already been rolled away.

This is what it means to be Easter people. We live in a Good Friday world, but we know how the story ends. Or, more accurately said, we know how the real and everlasting story will one day begin.

And that makes all the difference.