04/05/2026 - Easter Morning - The Wilderness Between Death and Resurrection
This morning, I woke up wondering: how do I meet a day of resurrection when I have never known a time quite as fraught as this one?
This year, the journey through Lent has been what my soul has needed. The wilderness has felt… almost safe—because it is what we have been living in for so long. And if I’m honest, I am a little afraid to leave it.
I know the stories of our ancestors. Moses, who led God’s people out of slavery, only to find them in the wilderness longing to go back. The prophet Isaiah, speaking into deep darkness, urging people to trust that light would come. Palm Sunday—the beauty of a hopeful procession that so quickly turned into a crowd crying out, “Crucify him.”
And I don’t know about you, but in my weaker moments—when I am already running on empty—overwhelm of the world can pull me toward the extremes of my wilderness: toward hiding, depression, or toward overworking/overfunctioning, as if everything depends on me.
But God, in mercy, keeps reminding me of what our scriptures make clear: the salvation of the world does not depend on me alone. And that faithfully showing up—offering what I have at any given moment—is enough for God to do wonders with.
Because something happened that Easter morning, while it was still dark.
Something happened in that in-between place—that quiet, disoriented, grief-soaked moment when Mary stands outside the tomb, weeping. Something happened while it was still dark—while the world, as Mary knew it, was still dark.
It was still dark. Jesus, her beloved, was dead. The future she trusted had collapsed.
And all she knew to do is return to the last place she saw him: the tomb.
So when the angels ask her, “Why are you weeping?” And when the stranger—Jesus, though she does not yet know it—asks, “Whom are you looking for?”
I hear her pain: “They have taken him away, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
One more pain upon pain. One more thing upon things breaking her heart.
Mary is not standing in resurrection. She is standing in the wilderness.
In Scripture, wilderness is not where people go by choice. It is not safe. It is not easy. It is where you end up when what you thought would save you… doesn’t.
The prophet Jeremiah—the “weeping prophet”—was called to speak a word no one wanted to hear. His ministry was marked by tension and resistance as he urged people to turn back before everything fells apart. They did not listen. And so Jeremiah stands in the midst of a world unraveling—grieving, lamenting, watching as the very foundations of his people’s life collapse.
He is not speaking from certainty.He is speaking from heartbreak.From a place where the future feels fragile, and everything familiar is slipping away.
Because the wilderness is not always a place you travel to.Sometimes, it is what remains when the structures you trusted can no longer hold.
Mary is in that kind of wilderness.
Jesus is gone. Resurrection has not yet made sense. And so she does what any of us would do:
She orients herself toward what she knows.
The tomb.
She returns to the place of death because it is the last place that made sense.
Even her questions are shaped by that orientation: “Where is the body?” “Where have they laid him?”
She is looking for Jesus… but only in the form she understands: dead, gone, contained.
And so when resurrection is standing right in front of her— she cannot see it.
Not because she is foolish. But because she is human.
Because when we are shaped by grief— when we are living inside systems of harm, exhaustion, and loss— we become oriented toward the tomb.
We learn to expect death.
We learn to scan for what is missing, what is broken, what is gone.
And new life— even when it is right in front of us— can feel impossible to trust.
I think this is why Easter, and for me this Easter especially feels so complicated.
Because the church tells us: Christ is risen. Alleluia.
But if we are honest— so much of our lives, and so much of our world, still feels like wilderness.
We are still waiting for resurrection to make sense.
Still waiting for healing. Still waiting for justice. Still waiting for things to be made right.
And if that’s where you are also— then, beloved, join me right there with Mary.
Not outside the story. But right in the middle of it.
Because here is the truth that John’s Gospel offers us:
Resurrection does not begin as clarity.
It begins as encounter… in the wilderness.
Mary does not leave the tomb before she meets Jesus. She meets him there.
In her grief. In her confusion. In her misrecognition.
And the turning point in the story is so small you could almost miss it.
Jesus says her name.
“Mary.”
That’s it.
No argument. No explanation. No proof.
Just her name.
And something in her shifts.
She turns.
That turning matters.
Because resurrection, at least at first, is not about having everything figured out.
It is about reorientation.
A turning—however slight— away from the assumption of death and toward the possibility of life.
Mary doesn’t suddenly understand everything.But she recognizes his voice. And that is enough to begin.
I wonder if part of what it means to live in Easter— especially when resurrection doesn’t feel fully here— is not to force ourselves into certainty… but to practice these small turnings.
To notice what some call “glimmers”— the opposite of triggers.
Where triggers tell us we feel unsafe, brings up grief, or tells us something is wrong—activate our anxiety or depression.
Glimmers are the opposite. Tiny but not inconsequential moments that remind us we’re safe and grounded and that joy is possible. Instead of our heart rising like it does when we experience triggers, glimmers cause our heart rate to slow and send our nervous system the message we are okay.
Small moments where your body registers: something is alive here.
The sound of birds in the morning. The way the wind moves through trees. A moment of connection. A breath that comes a little easier than the last one.
These are not the fullness of resurrection.
In some ways it feels like a faking it til we make it—it’s a shift to our body, mind, and spirit to look for glimmers of life rather than just signs of death.
Just as negative thinking begets more negative thinking, so does positive thinking beget positive thinking.
But they are not nothing.
They are signs that life is still moving— even in the wilderness.
Because the wilderness is not the end of the story.But it is part of it.And we don’t get to skip it.
We don’t get to rush Mary past the tomb any more than we get to rush ourselves past grief, or fear, or uncertainty.
But what we can do— is refuse to stay oriented only toward death.
We can practice turning.Even just a little.Even just enough to hear our name.
And maybe most importantly:
We do not do this alone. That is the sure power of being here this morning.
Mary is sent back to the others. Resurrection becomes real in community— in telling, in sharing, in borrowing hope from one another.
Because there will be days when you cannot see it.Days when the tomb feels more real than anything else.And on those days, someone else can hold the story for you.
Someone else can say: I have seen the Lord. Someone else can remind you: keep turning.
So this Easter— if resurrection feels distant, or incomplete, or hard to believe—beloved, know you are not doing it wrong. You are not alone.
You are in the wilderness.
And the wilderness, for all its danger and uncertainty, is also the place where God meets people again and again and again.
So may you not force yourself into Easter. It’s 50 days for a reason.
But may you begin, gently, to turn.May you notice the glimmers— however small.
May you hear your name, spoken in love.
And may resurrection find you— even here.
