Friday April 3 – Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

• Readings: Isaiah 52:13—53:12, Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25, Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9, John 18:1—19:42

Sunday April 5, 2026 – The Resurrection of the Lord

• Readings: Acts 10: 34a, 37-43; 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8; John 20:1-9

What if the first people at the tomb expected nothing at all?

Easter is sometimes dismissed as a comforting myth, a story believers tell because they want it to be true. But John’s account points in the opposite direction. The people closest to Jesus were not expecting resurrection. They knew what we know. Dead people stay dead.

There was no doubt about Jesus’ death. His body was crucified, declared dead, taken down, wrapped, and placed in a tomb. Even though those first followers believed in a future resurrection as promised in Scripture, they were convinced Jesus himself was gone. Mary assumed the body had been stolen. In John 20 states it plainly, they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. (John 20:9)

This matters. The disciples did not manufacture a resurrection to fit their beliefs. They knew Jesus was dead. So, what changed?

Something confronted them that demanded a new conclusion. The tomb was empty. The burial cloths were there. The head cloth was folded and set apart. When the ‘other disciple’ (the disciple John) entered the tomb, he “saw and believed”. He did not yet understand the Scriptures fully. But he knew something had happened. Belief came before full understanding. Meaning followed later, as Jesus’ words and the scriptural promises of God came into focus.

Christians do not believe in a fairy story. Like the first witnesses, we are convinced against our expectations: Jesus is risen. We believe because this was God’s work, long promised and now revealed. We believe because it transformed the lives of those first followers, and because their witness transformed others. And we believe because the risen Jesus is still changing the world.

In Him,

Jason