Resurrection for All
Easter Sunday
April 5, 2026
1 Corinthians 15:12-58, Colossians 1:18, Revelation 1:5
He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the one who is firstborn from among the dead so that he might occupy the first place in everything.
~ Colossians 1:18
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We often think of resurrection as a one-time historical event in the life of Jesus. We believe that through the mystery of his death and resurrection we will somehow be welcomed into eternal life. But this individual hope is much smaller than the hope the earliest followers of Jesus carried.
For many first-century Jews who believed in resurrection, it was never imagined as an individual event. Resurrection was communal. It was the hope that God would one day raise all people and finally bring justice to the world. The question was not simply what would happen to one faithful person after death, but whether God’s justice would ultimately prevail for everyone who had suffered under oppression and injustice.
When the apostle Paul proclaimed that Jesus had been raised, some asked, “How can there be resurrection if the dead have not yet been raised?” Paul responded that Christ is the first fruits of those who have died (1 Corinthians 15).
In other words, Easter is not the end of the story, it is the beginning. Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, the first sign that God’s promised future has already begun to break into the present.
The resurrection is not simply a reward for Jesus’ faithfulness. It is God’s vindication of his life and his way of love. Resurrection is God’s “yes” to Jesus and God’s “no” to the powers that executed him. Easter reveals something essential about God: the forces of domination, violence, and fear do not have the final word.
Because of this, resurrection is not only something we believe about the past. It reshapes how we live now.
If Easter is God’s “yes” to the way Jesus lived, then those who follow him must learn to live in that same light, refusing the systems of fear and power that once led to his execution.
Resurrection is not only something that happened to Jesus a long time ago. As Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin puts it:
Resurrection is what happens every time love refuses to stay buried, every time hope rises up out of places everyone else has given up on, every time a community comes back together after being torn apart, every time justice gets back on its feet after being knocked down again.
Look at the world. Everywhere there’s pain, there’s also someone showing up with compassion. Everywhere there’s despair, there’s someone planting seeds anyway. That’s resurrection! That’s new life breaking through the cracks.
Resurrection isn’t magic. It’s movement. It’s love getting up again and again…
If you want to experience resurrection, you just have to pay attention to the ways love keeps choosing to rise right in front of you.
Where do you see signs of resurrection breaking through — in your life, in your community, or in the world — and how might God be inviting you to join in that rising love?