Easter Day
April 5, 2026
John 20:1-18

When I was a kid, I remember running everywhere. I’d run to recess, I’d run at recess. After school, I play out front – I’d play soccer, baseball, basketball. I ran. In high school, I started running for fitness. I’d run five days a week, I knocked out a half marathon one day; nothing official, I just wanted to run. And now? Oh boy. Age catches everyone. I’ve slowed down. I hardly run at all.

I mean, that kind of running. Lord knows, I still do plenty of running, but it’s all up here. If worrying was a physical activity, I could run marathons. And I know many of you would be out there with me. This is the mind racing kind of running. This is when you are so worked up about something – you’ve got some problem, some bad news, some worry – that you wake up in the middle of the night, and your thoughts won’t stop running. Just like how you and I keep refreshing our phones to see what terrible news might have happened since the last time we checked for terrible news, five minutes ago. It’s why we rush to the TV when we hear some thing has happened – and it’s never for good things. This is the kind of running of negative thoughts. Our minds keep running back to all the times we have been rejected; our minds keep running back to that last family conversation and how hard it was; our minds keep running back to that one criticism from your boss, even if you have been doing a great job. Our minds keep running back to the bad memories, those things we wish we had not done, those things we wish we had said instead, feeling ashamed of ourselves. Lord knows, we all still do our fair share of running.

Just as Mary Magdalene, and Peter, and that other disciple were running on that first Easter morning. Listen again to the story – it says, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon and the other disciple.”

Now, for years I’ve read that, and I thought that Mary Magdalene is running because she’s excited. It is Easter after all. But I was reading it like a child – like a child running at the Easter Egg hunt. I read it differently now. I think that Mary is running because she’s upset. Worried. Scared. Afraid. Mary has gone to pay her respects at the tomb of Jesus. But he’s not there, so she runs to tell the others. That’s what she says, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” You can hear the panic in her voice, the breathless worry from her early morning run. Her Lord has been crucified, all she wanted to do was to go and grieve at his tomb, and now they’ve taken even that from her. Her mind is running.

So Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb. They run to the tomb in the dark of that morning, not because they’re happy, not because they’re playing a game, not because they’re trying get in a workout before breakfast, but because something has gone terribly wrong. 

Y’all, I am worn out. Worn out by all this running. I see it in you, too. We’re mentally, emotionally, physically exhausted – because our minds and our hearts keep running back to those hard things. The good things in life slide right by, they don’t make our hearts race. I mean, who ever lost sleep because they got a raise? When did you ever get a notification on your phone for breaking good news? Yeah, not happening.

It’s the hard things that keep our minds and hearts running. So there we are with Mary and Peter and the other disciple. Just running in the dark.

But it’s precisely at that moment, at the very worst moment, that God shows up. I mean, what a funny, beautiful, quirky little story this is. Mary Magdalene has gone back with the other disciples to see the empty tomb – and she must be a wreck. Tired out from all the running. Grieving for her friend who she has just watched get crucified. Totally worried about her own future. And then some guy starts asking her why she’s crying. You see this, right? Mary is so distraught, so upset, her mind is racing so fast, that she can’t even tell who it is that’s talking to her. It’s Jesus, but she thinks it’s the gardener. And it’s at that very moment – at her very worst, that everything turns around. Mary sees that it’s Jesus, risen from the dead. 

And that’s why we’re all here this morning. God knows just how hard we’ve been running. The Lord God sees, and knows, the heartache, the worry, the pain, the angst that permeates our souls. God sees what a wreck we; what a mess we are. What a mess this world is, and God sees how it is that we have such a hard time loving the Lord and loving our neighbors. God sees how it is that we grieve, so dearly, for the people that we have lost. Here we are – worn out.

And it is for those very reasons that the Lord God has acted. Jesus is raised from the dead. Yes, as a promise of eternal life for each one of us. But also as a sign of hope. That the Lord God will be there with us, and for us. Even when we’re at our wit’s end. Even when we’re all out of options. Even when we’re all exhausted from running in the dark. Jesus will be there, because, he too, has been through the worst of it and has come out in with new life.

And that’s what I have to say this morning. That the darkness, the despair does not have the last word. That death itself does not have the last word. The Lord God Almighty, the giver of life, has the last word. Jesus is raised from the dead – as a promise that life will overcome death. As a promise that whatever it is that you did or didn’t do, that you keep trying to run from, God forgives you. And the good news, the good news is that even if you do spend your whole life running in the dark, there will be someone there at the end of it all. As Jesus was there for Mary Magdalene – Jesus is there for you, too. So I’m not going to tell you to just quit worrying, I don’t have any tips on how to stop your mind from running at three o’clock in the morning, I will not tell you that everything is not so bad after all. No. But what I will tell you is that the Lord God cares for you. So today is the day to celebrate, to rejoice, to eat, and to drink, and to give thanks. Because you are forgiven, and you are loved. And that no matter how far or how hard you’ve been running, no matter how far it seems you have run from Jesus, Jesus will always be there. And that not even death itself can from separate you from the grace of the Living God.