April 12, 2026 First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA
1 Peter 1:3–9 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, 7 so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Although you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
John 20:19-31 19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
It is hard to proclaim Easter in a Good Friday world . . . but it is now an Easter world.
Jesus has risen
Life is still hard
You’d think that if Jesus has risen, if he’s conquered sin and death, that we’d see more of a difference in our world. Sin should have ended, right? And death, too? But that’s not how this works.
Jesus was raised from the dead; his Resurrection marks a radical re-direction of life, but it’s more like the major battle in a war that changes the direction of everything…
After the battle of Guadalcanal in the Pacific in World War 2, the defeat of Japan was inevitable, but there was still a lot of fighting to take place. So, yes, from one angle the war is won, but from another, closer to the ground, there’s still a lot to get through before we arrive at permanent peace. And that’s where we are now…. Assured that the war will be won, that it’s all going to be better, but still in the midst of real life, where things don’t go well at all.
We are not going to live in some sort of la-la land where we pretend that all is well when anyone with eyes and a heart knows that it’s not so. Years ago, when my father died – way too young, he was only 54 – people kept coming up to me after the funeral, saying, “there, there, it’s all for the best…. He was suffering, you know…” Well, so he was; he was a desperate alcoholic, dying from liver failure… but honestly, him being dead wasn’t “best”; him being healthy again, that would have been best. That kind of best wasn’t in his future; he was a captive to his addiction.
Sometimes, maybe, among the available options, death is a blessing, but it’s never honest to pretend that it’s a good thing. Life is filled with things we like to pretend are good because we know they’re inevitable, but there’s a way in which that’s a painful misrepresentation of the truth – a lie – because we all know that, resurrection or not, our lives are filled with stuff that’s hard, stuff that’s painful, stuff that’s bad. We know that in this world there are no easy answers.
Resurrection helps us get beyond the bad stuff, not by pretending it isn’t there, or even pretending that it’s good, but by showing us that good in life exists. It helps us get beyond the bad by putting it in its proper place…. Real, sometimes devastating, but never the whole of our reality.
What makes all this bearable is the way that we are bound together by our belief that Good will triumph over evil, that there is more than just our lives, that love creates something beautiful right here on earth, even in the midst of the absolute worst that can happen.
John Winthrop, one of the founders and leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote – at the beginning of their settlement of Boston, about how they would create something good, despite all the bad in our world – despite the temptations to put each one first and let the devil take the hindmost. Here’s what Winthrop wrote:
Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other’s necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other’s conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “the Lord make it like that of New England.”
For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither we are a going.
We overcome death by working together for the good of our world. We overcome greed by putting the good of the community ahead of our individual desires. We welcome the stranger who’s sitting in “our seat” in church… and give up our seat to make things better for the community.
Winthrop says it in old-fashioned seventeenth century speak – We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other’s necessities. We must put aside our greed, in other words, so that the world’s needs can be met. Building a world where everyone has enough, where everyone is safe, where everyone is loved, is the work of Resurrection.
Jesus died. He was really dead.
And then he rose from the dead, and changed the world….
Changed the Roman Empire from a place where meanness and self-centeredness was the ultimate end, to a world where Love, welcome, inclusion, justice, mercy were the watchwords.
Jesus changed the world into a Resurrection life, and we are called to follow that path today.
Amen.
© 2026, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 