Jesus-Filled Easter Eggs
Sermon — April 5, 2026 (Easter Sunday)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings
The story of Easter morning is the story of an empty tomb. After Jesus’ death on Friday afternoon, the two Marys, his most faithful disciples, don’t have time to prepare Jesus’ body for burial before the Sabbath begins. They wait anxiously throughout the day of Sabbath rest, mourning the loss of their friend. After the Sabbath is over, it’s too dark to see inside the tomb, and so they spend the night in restless sleep, and then they head out as early as they can. And just as the day begins to dawn, Mary and Mary arrive at the tomb.
But when they get there, they don’t find what they expect. The tomb is empty. The stone that was covering it has been rolled away! And they’re confused and they’re amazed. Has Jesus’ body been stolen? Has it somehow been moved? And then an angel appears, and says to them, “Do not be afraid; I know that you’re looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he is risen.” And their fear mixes with joy, but their amazement remains. The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia.
The story of Easter morning is the story of the empty tomb, and the image of the empty tomb is a powerful one. It’s an image of liberation, in which Christ breaks forth from the tomb as if from a prison, finally free from the bonds of death. It’s an image of new birth, in which the tomb in which Jesus’ body lies becomes the womb from which new life emerges. It’s an image that has turned the humble egg into one of the most festive symbols of Easter: beneath the hard exterior, new life awaits. And people sometimes take this image very literally indeed. You can buy, online, right now, plastic Easter eggs that are printed with the words, “He lives!” And when you open them up, what do you find inside? A little plastic Jesus with a smile on his face, of course! You crack open the Easter egg as if you’re rolling away the stone from the tomb, and the Resurrected Jesus pops out from the inside.
But the Jesus-filled Easter egg is completely missing the point. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.) There is a fundamental difference between the chick cracking open the egg, and the stone rolling away from the tomb. The chick cracks open the egg in order to escape from the shell; the breaking of the egg is the process by which it’s born. But that’s not the case with the Resurrection of Christ. By the time the stone is rolled way—Jesus is already gone.
Lent has only just ended and already I have something to confess: I lied to you, just a little bit, when I told the story of Easter morning before. I told you that when Mary and Mary arrive at the tomb, they don’t find what they expect: they find that the tomb is empty, and the stone has been rolled away. But that’s not exactly how the story goes.
Matthew tells us that Mary and Mary went to the tomb, and they saw the stone there, and then, after they arrived, “suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.” (Matthew 28:2) Notice what they don’t see. They don’t see Jesus running out past them now that the stone has been rolled away and he can escape. No, the angel tells them that he is not here; he has been raised already. The angel rolls away the stone not for Jesus to escape; but to show them that Jesus is already gone.
In other words: when Mary and Mary arrive on Easter morning to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, the tomb is already empty, but the stone is still there.
There is a moment, in other words, when they are standing at the tomb, and the Resurrection has already happened, but they don’t know it yet. In the eyes of the crowd who saw him die, in the eyes of the soldiers who guard his grave, in the eyes of these faithful women who mourn his loss, Jesus is dead. The power of the Empire, the power of violence, the power of death, has won. His followers’ dreams of a Messiah who would bring about an age of justice and of peace have come to an end. His teachings were inspiring, but his strategy was flawed. Jesus is dead and they have laid him in the tomb.
And yet behind that stone, the world has already changed.
We spend our whole lives in that moment, suspended between the stone and the empty tomb. We’ve been told the good news of a Prince of Peace, but we lived in a world wracked by war. We’ve been given the promise that God is making all things new, but we know that our world is a work in progress at best. Jesus tells us the people we have loved and lost will rise again to new and eternal life, and that we will one day see them again, but for now, we still feel their absence. On Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection, but everywhere around us, we still see a stone covering the tomb.
And the point of Easter is not for us to stand outside, trying to peer past the stone, trying to understand how Jesus could escape, and whether he’s really gone. He is not here, the angel says. He is risen, and he is going ahead of them to Galilee, to the place where they’re from. He’s not staying here, in the holy place: he’s out there, in their hometowns, with the rest of their lives.
The point of Easter is not to gather here, once a year, and celebrate the day when Jesus rose from the dead. The point of Easter is live the other 364 days knowing that he is risen; knowing that, although we still see the stone, the tomb is already empty.
The point of Easter is for us to live as people of faith, holding fast to the promise that God is working through us to build a world of peace and love, however slow that work may be. The point is to live as people of hope, trusting that the stories of our lives do not end in death, but in new life. The point is to live as people of love, trusting that although the way of humble, merciful love doesn’t always seem to be winning in this world, the most important battle has already been won; knowing that hatred and violence and anger will never have the final say, because they have already been overcome; that Christ has been raised from the dead, and he is going ahead of us to lead us on the way.
Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
