Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 4/5/2026, Easter Sunday
Lessons:
Matthew 28:1-10
Happy Easter, saints!
As I stand here this morning, the Artemis II spacecraft is somewhere out there—about 150,000 miles from home—roughly two-thirds of the way to the moon.
Four astronauts— literally sky-sailors —are floating inside that Orion capsule. Monitoring systems. Preparing for a lunar pass-by.
Maybe even smiling for a Sunday morning interview or two.
And they’re doing all of it without gravity.
No floor.
No ceiling.
No natural sense of orientation.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield once wrote, “There is no ‘up’ or ‘down’ in space, but your brain wants there to be.” Your mind tries to compensate.
It flips the room.
It forces a center.
It invents stability where there isn’t any.
Because human beings are not made to live without a sense of what is true.
And that disorientation—that flipping, that confusion—is not as far from our lives as we might think.
Pilots flying through thick clouds know it.
Scuba divers suspended in deep, open water feel it.
Skiers caught in a whiteout—where snow and sky blur into one endless blank—experience it too.
When you cannot tell which way is up, you are in danger.
And Easter begins right there.
Because the first Easter morning, according to Matthew’s Gospel, does not begin with clarity.
It begins with an earthquake.
It begins with fear.
It begins with confusion.
“Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb… and behold, there was a great earthquake.”
The ground itself is unstable.
The stone is rolled away—not so Jesus can get out—but so that we can see in.
And the guards? The strong ones? The ones with power?
They collapse:
“They shook… and became like dead men.”
And the women—the ones who came in love, in grief, in faith—they hear the first Easter sermon:
“Do not be afraid… He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.”
Do not be afraid.
Which tells you something important.
They were afraid.
Because resurrection is not tidy.
It is not predictable.
It does not fit inside the categories we have carefully built.
Easter is not just good news.
It is disorienting news.
Because it means everything we thought we knew about how the world works… might be wrong.
And that’s exactly what the cross had already revealed.
Remember back on Good Friday… we watched what happened when perfect goodness entered a disoriented world.
We killed it.
We took love—pure, self-giving, enemy-forgiving love—and we nailed it to a cross.
We thought we were dealing with blasphemy.
We thought we were protecting truth.
We thought we were doing what was necessary.
The Cross was there to deal with badness.
But we used it to deal with goodness.
We were wrong.
We had flipped the world upside down and called it normal.
We had mistaken cruelty for strength.
We had mistaken domination for power.
We had mistaken fear for wisdom.
As Fleming Rutledge puts it, “The cross is the place where the world’s systems are exposed for what they are.”
And what they are… is broken.
We didn’t know which way was up anymore.##
And then—Easter.
Easter is when God resets the horizon.
Easter is when God says, “Let me show you reality again.”
Not the reality we have constructed.
Not the reality shaped by fear or scarcity or violence.
But reality as it truly is.
Because when Jesus rises, something astonishing happens:
The one we rejected is vindicated.
The one we crucified is revealed as Lord.
The one we thought lost… is the center of everything.
“He is not here… he has been raised… as he said.”
As he said.
Which means Jesus wasn’t wrong.
We were.
And that realization changes everything.
Because if Jesus is right—if his way is actually the way—then all those things he taught, all those things that felt upside down… are suddenly the truest things in the world:
Love your enemies.
Bless those who curse you.
Forgive.
Give.
Trust.
That’s not naive.
That’s reality.
And Matthew gives us this remarkable detail.
The women leave the tomb “with fear and great joy.”
Both.
Not one or the other.
Fear… and joy.
Because when your world is reoriented, it’s not just comforting—it’s overwhelming.
It’s like stepping out of a storm into sudden sunlight.
You blink.
You hesitate.
You don’t quite trust it yet.
But it’s real.
And then—this moment, this quiet, breathtaking moment—
“Jesus met them.”
No fanfare.
No thunder.
Just… presence.
“Greetings.”
And they fall at his feet.
They hold onto him.
They worship.
And he says what the angel had already said:
“Do not be afraid.”
Easter keeps saying that.
Over and over.
Do not be afraid.
Because fear is what kept the world upside down in the first place.
Fear told us there wasn’t, and we aren’t, enough.
Fear told us to protect ourselves at all costs.
Fear told us that love was too risky.
And Easter answers:
You are safe in God.
There is enough in God.
Love is the only thing that lasts.
As Rowan Williams once wrote, “The resurrection is not the reversal of a defeat, but the unveiling of a victory that was already there.”
It just didn’t look like victory.
Not at first.
And maybe that’s where we live most of the time.
In that space between Good Friday and Easter morning.
In that space where things feel unclear.
Where grief is real.
Where fear is loud.
Where we are not quite sure which way is up.
Because if we’re honest…
The world still feels disorienting.
We are told we are not enough.
Not successful enough.
Not secure enough.
Not important enough.
We are told that good people get left behind.
That kindness is weakness.
That you better protect yourself, because no one else will.
We are told that worldly power wins.
That money defines value.
That fear is just realism.
And Easter steps into that noise and says: No.
That’s not how the world actually works.
Because the resurrection reveals something deeper than what we see.
It reveals that love is stronger than death.
That mercy is stronger than judgment.
That giving is stronger than taking.
It reveals that the center of gravity in the universe… is not power.
It’s love.
And once you see that—even a little—you can’t unsee it.
Everything begins to shift.
You start to wonder:
Maybe I don’t have to prove myself all the time.
Maybe I don’t have to carry every failure with me.
Maybe I don’t have to live afraid.
Maybe…
Maybe I am already held.
Maybe I am already forgiven.
Maybe I am already loved.
That’s Easter.
Not just an event.
A reorientation.
A resetting of everything.##
So here is the question Easter asks—not in theory, but right here, in your actual life:
What is upside down for you?
Where have you lost your sense of direction?
Where are you living in a kind of spiritual whiteout—unable to tell what’s true anymore?
And what would it look like—really look like—if Easter were true for you?
If you were truly forgiven for your past?
Not theoretically.
Not vaguely.
But actually.
If you were truly accepted as you are?
Not once you improve.
Not once you fix everything.
But now.
If your future were not chained to your worst moments?
If you didn’t have to drag your past behind you like a heavy suitcase through every room you enter?
What would change?
Because that is what the angel is announcing.
That is what Jesus is embodying.
That is what Easter is declaring to the whole world:
You are not stuck.
You are not finished.
You are not defined by what has been.##
“Go and tell…” the angel says.
Because resurrection is not meant to stay at the tomb.
It moves.
It spreads.
It gets carried into ordinary lives.
Into your life.
Into your relationships.
Into your decisions this week.
Easter is not just something you believe.
It’s something you live into.
Every time you choose forgiveness over resentment—Easter.
Every time you choose generosity over fear—Easter.
Every time you choose love when it would be easier not to—Easter.
Little resurrections.
Everywhere.
And over time, they begin to add up.
They begin to reorient not just your life… but the world around you.
Because that’s how God works.
Not just through grand moments.
But through quiet, persistent, resurrection-shaped living.
So yes—Easter has called you here this morning.
But it will not stay here.
It will follow you out those doors.
Into your conversations.
Into your work.
Into your doubts.
Into your hopes.
And it will keep asking you, gently, persistently:
Which way is up?
And it will keep inviting you—to trust that in the risen Christ,
love is the center of gravity.
And it always has been.
Alleluia.
Christ is risen.
Amen