Easter is not a happy ending. It is hopeful, it is healing, it is a powerful rebuke of death and a defiant proclamation of the life, the mercy, and the love of God that persists throughout human history, throughout human failure, despite human sin. But it is not an ending. Even Jesus’ most astonished and delighted disciples did not live happily ever after. Easter is not the end of their story, it is far from the end of Jesus’ story, and it is not the end of ours.

Perhaps the dilemma of Easter is perfect to our present moment in the world: we need, we long, we are allowed and we are encouraged to rejoice in the resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ against impossible odds; against the powers of death itself. And the world continues to turn and to churn out its iterations of betrayal, crucifixion, and its counterparts. We are inordinately blessed by the mercy of God to have life beyond our imagining; and life on earth continues to find itself under substantial pressure.

Even so, and rightly so, we make our song, Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Mary went to the garden very early in the morning, before it was properly light, before she had properly shaken off the sleeplessness of the previous night, with its grief and its ineffective remedies. So bleary and weary and beside herself was she that, at first, she didn’t even recognize him.

I mean, I can relate, in a way. It is sometimes easier to become wrapped up in my own grief, swaddled and shrouded in my own complaints and unhappiness, the worries and weariness of the world, that when the miracle breaks through, the Word of God, the word of grace, the glimpse of grace in the garden, I would as likely miss it as not.

But Jesus called out Mary’s name, and in that electric current of relationship, she knew him. In that recognition, she heard him. It’s like when we are at prayer, unsure whether or not God is listening, and we hear, all of a sudden, the song of a bird, or the whisper of a memory, and we know that we are connected to a conversation that transcends the moment.

And in that moment, Jesus warned Mary not to cling to him, not to hang on him, not to make this moment one that was all and only about the two of them; but to run and tell the others what she had witnessed, so that they, too, could know and believe that God is still with us. That Emmanuel is an eternal promise, not a limited, mortal way of being. That Jesus is with us through the end of the ages and beyond.

Jesus sent Mary to tell the others, because resurrection, because prayer, because salvation, while it is always an intensely personal experience, is never only about the individual. I mean, it is personal, of course it’s personal; it is because of the profoundly personal relationship that they had that Mary recognized Jesus from the way he said her name. And yet, God so loved the world …

God loves not only us but the whole world.

Here’s where we get into that dilemma, that paradox of Easter: that death has been defeated, that mercy has prevailed, that the life and love and magnificence of God cannot he killed nor negated.

And that it takes all of us who believe in the resurrection, who believe in the mercy, who believe that the love of God conquers all human sin and suffering; it takes all of us to share that message with those who are still suffering, with those from whom mercy has been stolen, for those who are dwelling in the valleys of the shadow of death, to make it real, just as Mary shared the good news with Peter, and the beloved disciple, and all of the others so that they could experience it for themselves.

No, God does not need us to succeed; Christ is risen. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the victory over death and death-dealers and empire-builders and betrayers and envy, the world and the devil – the resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s free gift to us, and we need do nothing to earn it.

And the world continues to turn and to churn out its iterations of betrayal, crucifixion, and its counterparts. Still, the earth groans under their pressure, the children cry, the exiles wander, those who deal in greed and death still seem too often to have the upper hand. But we know better. We know that love has already won. We have seen it in the empty tomb. We have heard it in the voice of Jesus, calling us each by name.

The resurrection of life and love today might look a lot like us mirroring the love of God among our neighbours, our communities, even to our enemies. Like Mary running to tell the others what she had discovered of the enduring, unending, undefeatable love of God.

I am going to trust you to decide what that looks like as a community of faith here in America, here in the 21^st century world. I am a privileged immigrant, a pilgrim, the mother of a queer and beloved family, one who relies on God’s grace to resurrect me out of bed every new morning, a priest; I have some idea of where Christ is calling me to preach good news. You know where it is that you are called to live the good news, the good love of God.

Because Easter is not a happy ending. It is hopeful, it is healing, it is a powerful, the most powerful, rebuke of death and a defiant proclamation of the life, the mercy, and the love of God that persists; and it is a story that we get to tell over and over again, wherever new life is needed, wherever love may heal; because this is the never-ending story of his God loves us: enough to go beyond even the grave to show us that God is with us, Emmanuel, yesterday, today, in this fragile life, and forever.

 Amen.