Easter Sunday 2026

In this Easter Sunday episode, we turn to John 20 to explore the resurrection of Jesus and the question at its core: is it fact or fiction? Walking through the eyewitness accounts, the empty tomb, and the responses of those who first encountered the risen Christ, we’re invited to wrestle with the reality of the resurrection. This message challenges both doubt and belief, pointing to the resurrection as the foundation of Christian hope. Ultimately, it calls us to respond personally to the risen Jesus with faith, trust, and renewed life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

A reading from the book of John. Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been. One had the head and the other had the foot. They asked her, Woman, why are you crying? They have taken my Lord away, she said, and I don't know where they had put him. At this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was a gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him. Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned toward him and cried out in a rammic, Rabboni, Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go inside and tell my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my father, and your father to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand in his side, I will not believe. A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here. See my hands? Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Stop doubting and believe. Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God. Then Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Two thousand years ago, an historical event took place.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Jesus of Nazareth lived and then died as a criminal, a death that only that was reserved for slaves in the Roman Empire. So why should we remember him today? He was one of the many who had eventually was treated like a rebel of the empire and he hung on a cross. It should have been at this point that it looked as if his small mark on human history would rapidly disappear. So for the majority of us, including influencers and celebrities, it takes only two or three generations for our name to be forgotten. I mean, maybe there's a vague remembrance of our name. How many of you know the name of your great-grandparent? All right. How many of you know the name of your great-great-grandparent? Ooh, nice. Okay, we got some historians in here. Oh, nice. The majority of us would don't do not remember our great-great-grandparents or even go into our third great-grandparent. Do you know the names Simon Barkokaba or Manahim ben Judah? They also claim to be the Jewish Messiah. And we are not gathered here in this room in their name. Something happened with Jesus that has kept his name from disappearing after his death. Three days after his death, the tomb was empty. Which begs the question how do you think the tomb became empty? There are basically two possible answers. In the book of John, an eyewitness account of Jesus' life, we find examples of how people responded to that question. How do you think the tomb became empty? The first one that runs to the tomb, her name is Mary. She runs to the tomb, she finds it empty, and so she runs back to all of these other Jesus followers, and this is what her reply is. They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they put him. Her initial response was somebody stole the body. Somebody took the body, which would be one of the two responses to how did the tomb become empty? Peter, who was just uh ridden with shame and guilt and confusion from the days before, he gets up and starts running. John, the other disciple, starts running. They have this foot race to the tomb. One of them gets there first, the other one uh slowly arrives afterwards, and they look into the tomb. And it and for Peter, it doesn't say what his response was. What did he believe about the empty tomb? For John, it says this.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

He saw and he believed. What did he believe? Did he believe somebody took the body?

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Or did he believe that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead as he said he was going to? So Mary, she goes back to the tomb, waits around, and then something happens for her to just run back to the disciples that are gathered still, and she goes from somebody took the body to Jesus rose from the dead. She says this to them, I have seen the Lord. And you know what their response is? She's speaking nonsense. They don't believe her. Which would probably be the majority of us in the room, would have responded to her in the same way. What are you talking about? People don't rise from the dead. And then Jesus begins in his subversive way, he kind of just starts appearing to different people at different times and different groups. And one of his disciples, Thomas, wasn't there when he first appeared to them. And when the disciples tell him, Thomas, he is alive, his response is very human. Look at what he says. Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and I put my finger where his nails were, where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. One of our habits here is to read portions of scripture. Uh, and you can join us on any of the yellow words. Uh you can join on any of the words if you want. Um even though these guys are his closest friends, Thomas doesn't believe them. And I appreciate that because it kind of reveals that this wasn't just some story that was concocted by all of them. How did this tomb become empty? So we're we're in this world, I don't know if you noticed, we're in this world that's that's pretty skeptical and suspicious about everything. Uh we are at a time where false information is flying around. Have you seen that? A few of you have. Richard Roardy, a postmodern philosopher, said, Truth is whatever your contemporaries let you get away with saying. Whatever your peers allow you to say, that's truth. Fact-checkers are exhausted by all the information that they're trying to figure out. Some of you have been attempting to tell your friends and your family, no, this is real. No, this is real. Some of you even recently probably said to your mom, no, mom, that is an AI video. It's not real. So let's play a game of fact or fiction. All right, so you can compete against somebody who's next to you. Fact or fiction. And I'll stay away from controversial things. Uh let's start with this. The Eiffel Tower grows up to six inches over the summer. Fact or fiction? Now you can compete. You can say it out loud too. Yeah, yeah. Okay. This is a fact. Second one, polka dots make geese angry. Be brave. Come on, just own whatever answer you got. Fact or fiction. There we go. This one's a fiction. This one I if you Google the word cat and you click on the paw print on the page, anywhere you click from that, then on, a cartoon cat arm runt comes out and begins to slap at you. Fact or fiction. That is a fact. I even tried it. Uh in 2015, Taylor Swift unsuccessfully tried. Any Swifties in here. Oh, you owned that. Well done. Yes. And your hand stays up. Yes. Oh man. Fact or fiction unsuccessfully tried to trademark the word squad. That squad. She tried to trademark the word squad. Fiction. In 1942, a group of mafia bosses started the National Bosses Day. Fiction. Full-time Netflix viewer. Full-time Netflix viewer is an official job title that actually exists. That is a fact. And some of you are wishing, some of you probably are in that role. You're not just getting paid for, you're not getting paid for it. The 40 elephants was the name used by London's first documented all-female gang. That's a fact. All right, here we go. Cows hate country music. Fact or fiction. It's a fact. How did they figure that out? It's how much milk they produce while they're listening to different kinds of music. And country music makes them stop. All right.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

The Caesar salad was named for Julius Caesar. Oh, go one more. One more. One more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Seth, go one more ahead. There you go. Oh, oh, sorry. Did I miss her? I miss. This is not Caesar salad. This is Dolly Parton. Let's do hers. Dolly Parton was once lost a Dolly Parton look-alike contest. That is a fact. Yeah, yeah. What do you got next? Okay. A snake milker is an official job title. Oh, yeah, you guys are smart. Yeah, that is. That's a true yeah. I'll let you Google that. Um what do we got? Here we go. Oh yeah. Caesar salib is named after Julius Caesar. That's fiction. All right. Sorry, Seth. I I did those out of order. Okay, next one. All right. In honor of this week. We landed on the moon in 1969. Or did we? That just pointed out some of our conspiracy theorists in the room. Oh yeah. Oh man. Jesus rose from the grave. Huh. Okay. A disciple named John took time to write about Jesus' life. And he spends this large portion for some reason about his death. Almost half of his book is about Jesus' death. Why would he do that? Because he wanted us to know that Jesus actually died so that he could tell the next part of the story. He wanted us to make sure we knew the fact that Jesus did indeed have a physical death. Look how, think about how his disciples responded to his death. Judas first betrays him and then he takes his life. And all of the other disciples, they run off and they abandon him because they didn't have in their mind this idea that a Messiah was actually going to die. And so John is going to tell us the story about Jesus' death. And then after the story about his death, something more happens. He adds more to the story. His death doesn't end the whole story. John writes towards the end of his book, he writes this in verse 30 of John chapter 20. Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Why did he write this down? John's saying, what I'm telling you is not fiction. Jesus physically died, and then three days later he rose from the grave. And in his writing, he's applying, if you don't believe me, check out and talk to all of these names I'm listing in this book as well, who saw it. This book would have been circulated among others who would have known some of these other names. And he says, Hey, if you don't believe me, ask some of these other people who also initially pushed back on this that Jesus rose from the grave. They didn't right away believe it. But if you don't believe this, talk to them now. In fact, he includes two very influential people who are at great risk for being part of this story. In uh in um chapter 19, verse 38. Later, a man named Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now, Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. And with Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. Another man named Nicodemus joins them, and they take Jesus' body down off the cross and they bury him. And they're telling these two names because these are very influential people at this time, and you could go and speak to them about what we're about to tell you next. Verse 40 says, Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it and with spices and strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. And then several weeks later, all of these followers of Jesus are preaching in the streets of Jerusalem that he rose from the grave. This is the very city that he was publicly humiliated and crucified. There could have been many who would have come up against them if there was a body in that tomb.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

They could have debated this with these disciples.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yet there they are teaching about Jesus' death and resurrection. Jesus' death was a surprise to the disciples. And as one of my close friends observed, Jesus constantly surprised people. He didn't fit the people's expectations. He was controversial. He loved the overlooked and he helped the underserved. And while he confronted the religious leaders and those in powerful positions, he still loved them. Jesus had dinner with the well-respected and well-connected one night, and then he ate with the outcast and the forgotten the next. Jesus was a comfort was comfortable with Jewish rabbis and he was comfortable with Jewish tax collectors. He touched the untouchable. He gave his heart to the downcast. He would cry at the graveside of his dearest friends, and then he would raise them to life. He walked this earth owning nothing, but he came from heaven, the creator of all things. He was God in disguise, so human that he would die, and so divine that he would be sitting on the throne of heaven today. He's the one that struck terror into the demons, and the one whom the angels adored. He is the beloved son of the eternal Father, but he's also our Savior who died for our sins, and he surprised the world by rising from the grave, showing that he was indeed God in the flesh. A great writer, Flannery O'Connor, said this: if Christ wasn't God, he was really pathetic.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

There is no in-between. He rises from the grave showing he is God.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Something happened after Jesus' death that has resulted in him becoming the most painted subject in art, the most written about in literature. He has sung about both in sacred music and in cultural music. He's debated among scholars, he has influenced science and government and medicine and education, and he is celebrated among millions every single week. One Yale historian wrote, Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the West history of Western culture for almost 20 centuries. Anyone naturally skeptical in life? You could be, you could be Yeah, okay, a couple. Yeah. We are many of us are naturally skeptical. Skeptics are welcome here. It took many of the disciples several appearances of Jesus for them to recognize. Like Darth Vader. Instead, he willing, he just lovingly invites Thomas in and says, Put your fingers here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Stop doubting and believe. Then Jesus tells him, Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Doubt is part of a growing faith. Friedrich Beakner says, doubts are the ants and the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving. Your doubts are welcome here. But what's really important about with our what's really important that what we do with our doubts is we we consider them in a good community where we can wrestle with it together. And you're invited to do that here.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

To consider who Jesus is. And you can be even skeptical about it. So in closing, I was reflecting on the resurrection this week.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

And I consider how important it is for us, for Jesus followers, uh, to be reminded of the resurrection each year. And it matters to us in 2026. It's important for us to meditate on a fundamental truth that Jesus did indeed rise from the grave. Many of his first disciples, they struggled to recognize Jesus in his resurrection. There's a great story of two people, two disciples who are really discouraged walking on a road. Jesus shows up, they don't recognize him, and he spends a couple of hours with them and just talks about how the scriptures point out that Jesus will indeed do this. It doesn't, it takes all the way till dinner. They're sitting with him at dinner, and it wasn't for until two hours into the conversation or three hours into the conversation that they realize, oh, this is Jesus. This is Jesus sitting in front of us. Many followers of Jesus, we end up living between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. As Ronald Rollhiser writes, the God we were raised, uh we were raised on has be has been crucified, but a sense of the resurrection has not yet full sufficiently illumined our imaginations so that we can recognize the God that is walking beside us. You may have encountered Jesus at the cross. But maybe today you're struggling to recognize him as the risen Savior in your daily life. Struggling to see him in new and deeper ways. I know that discouragement and suffering tend to just disrupt our faith. But in his resurrection, he has these promises that those won't be the end of the story. It's often in those seasons we miss God's presence walking beside us. But the resurrected life with Christ has the power to turn bitterness into forgiveness, comfort our sorrow with his joy, turn crippling shame and guilt into being called his beloved. He soothes our anxiety with a peace that surpasses all understanding. He rescues us from hatred and contempt, which is so alive today, he rescues us from that by inviting us into how we love our neighbor our enemy.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

In John chapter 11, just before uh before Jesus goes to the cross, he's at a funeral. And he says these really powerful words.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Jesus says to this this uh woman who lost her brother, I am the resurrection and the life. He said this before he was resurrected from the dead. And he says, The one who believes in me will live even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. And then he asks this question Do you believe this?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Jesus who walked this earth like every other human, dies like every one of us will, and then he does something else. Fills this statement that He is the resurrection. And Christian, He is the life that we live in every single day. Would you bow your heads in in a posture of prayer with me?

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Would you just spend a couple minutes to just consider and meditate on some of these questions I asked through this message?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

How did the tomb become empty? If you doubt about Jesus rising from the grave, could I invite you into uh questioning your doubts?

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Because two thousand years later, there is this incredible movement that has been impacted by that empty grave. That was the catalyst. That empty grave is the catalyst for us being in this room right now. And would you consider following Jesus? Or at least opening your heart to the possibility that Jesus is the Son of God? Followers of Jesus, would you consider what does it mean to live a resurrected life each and every day? How can we be illumined by that so that the world may know? And as you consider these things, I'll prepare for us to celebrate communion.