Easter Day
Sermon Preached by Reverend Tracey Gracey on Sunday, 20 April, 2025.
I remember the first time I went to church on Easter Day.
I was fifteen, I had a hippy boyfriend who liked to experience different things so we decided it would be cool to go to church and hear the story of Jesus.
So on Easter Sunday we walked down to the Uniting Church and slid into a pew. We sung a couple of hymns and sat back to listen to the readings and then the sermon.
The reading was about a rock being rolled away and angels saying he’s not here, go and find him.
Then the minister started to speak again about the rock, the angels, a bunch of women and more urgently telling them to go and find the disciples.
I sat there thinking what’s this about a rock, where’s the story of Jesus dying on the cross.
Our ‘cool’ experience was not what we thought it was going to be and we both left the church feeling quite disheartened.
We wanted to hear the story of Jesus’ death and all we heard was that a rock had been rolled away and Jesus was missing.
It wasn’t until years later when I attended services on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day that I realised we had gone to church on the wrong day.
If we wanted to hear the story of Jesus’ death, we should have gone to church on Good Friday.
Because on Easter Day — and this might seem strange to say — we celebrate the fact that Jesus is missing.
That absence — that empty space — is not a mistake.
It’s the whole point.
Jesus is no longer where we left him.
And that means something new is already beginning.
His absence opens up room for something more —
A shift.
A surprise.
A sacred encounter.
And in Luke’s telling of the resurrection story, that absence is front and centre.
Unlike the other gospels, Luke doesn’t show Jesus appearing at the tomb.
There’s no warm reunion. No footsteps in the garden.
No familiar hand reaching out to comfort or confirm.
Instead, Luke gives us a different kind of resurrection story — one full of:
- Confusion and uncertainty
- A cryptic, heavenly question:
- “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
- And a gentle but firm command:
- “Remember what he told you…”
In Luke’s telling, resurrection is not proven — it’s proclaimed.
Not confirmed by sight — but recalled through memory.
Luke’s focus isn’t on convincing us that Jesus is alive by showing us his face but by inviting us to remember Jesus — his words, his love, his way.
And in that remembering, something stirs. Something rises.
Not as a historical detail, but as a spiritual awakening.
Because resurrection is not just an event in the past.
It’s a choice in the present.
An attitude we adopt.
A daily choice to trust that love still speaks, and that endings can become beginnings.
Rudolf Bultmann says “Resurrection lies there, slumbering as it were, and you and I — we must awaken it.”
And how do we awaken it?
We begin, simply and honestly, by remembering.
We trace the steps of the Jesus story — not just as observers, but as participants.
As ones who, like those women at the tomb, have lived through:
- Confusion
- Disappointment
- Shattered expectations
- And still, like the women and the disciples, we turn up, looking for hope.
This is the process of resurrection.
It’s not instant. It’s not neat.
But it begins with remembering the life and death of Jesus and how his words and actions shaped the world and opened up a new way for us to live.
God was walking through the streets, looking for a home for his Son, and knocked on a woman’s door.
“Would you let my Son have a room?” God asked.
She thought about it.
“I have a small spare room. I could let you rent that.”
“I’m actually looking to buy,” God replied.
“I don’t want to sell,” she said, “but you could use the back room. Rent’s low. Come in and take a look.”
God looked around. “I like it. I’ll take it on your terms.”
As time went on, she felt uneasy.
The Son was cooped up in that little room.
God knocked again.
“Would you have any more space now?” God asked.
She offered another room for rent.
“I’ll take it,” said God. “Maybe later, you’ll give more room.”
Weeks passed. She still felt unsure.
“I’d like to give more space, but I need some for myself.”
“I understand,” God said. “I’ll wait.”
Eventually, she gave God the top floor. God was grateful.
Then, God knocked again.
‘I just want you to know that I am interested in buying your house.
I wouldn’t put you out.
We’d work it out together.
Your house would be mine and my Son would live here.’
Actually God added, ‘you’d have more space than ever before.’
I really can’t see how that could be true,’ the woman replied,
I know said God. ‘and to be honest, I can’t really explain it.
It is something you have to discover for yourself.’
It only happens if you let my Son have the whole house.’
‘a bit risky,’ said the woman.
‘Yes, but try me,’ encouraged God.
I’m not sure – I’ll let you know.’
I’ll wait,’ said God
A wisdom story entitled ‘Rooms to Rent.’
The proof about the resurrection lies in our hands and in our choices.
It is not the persuasive power of the empty tomb that makes sense of resurrection, but making room for Jesus in our daily lives by:
- Choosing to forgive, even when it’s hard
- Being kind when it’s easier not to care
- Remembering a story of Jesus, and living it out in our own small way
- Saying “yes” to something that might change us
- Letting go of fear and choosing to start again — even when it hurts
- When we remember Jesus — not just the man, but his love, his teaching, his relationship with his God, his invitation — we begin to live into the resurrection.
We become the empty tomb — not a place of sorrow, but a space where hope now lives, where love breaks through, and something new begins.
For resurrection isn’t something we have to believe in —
It’s something we live.
Something we choose — again and again.
And when we do — our lives don’t just reflect the Easter story.
They become part of it.
And that is when we meet the risen Christ
That’s when Christ finds a home in us.
And that’s when we experience the proof of the resurrection!
Amen