April 5, 2026 | Word Out!
Download the Bulletin from April 5, 2026
READINGS
First Reading: Jeremiah 31:1-6
1 At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.
2 Thus says the Lord:
The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
3 the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
4 Again I will build you, and you shall be built,
O virgin Israel!
Again you shall adorn yourself with your tambourines
and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.
5 Again you shall plant vineyards
on the mountains of Samaria;
the planters shall plant
and shall enjoy the fruit.
6 For there shall be a day when sentinels will call
in the hill country of Ephraim:
“Come, let us go up to Zion,
to the Lord our God.”
Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4
1 If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
Gospel: John 20:1-18
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, 12 and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.
SERMON—Pastor Dan Peterson
“The Risen Life”
Grace to you, and peace, from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, who is the Christ. Amen.
Our message today, as I mentioned at the outset of the service, is called “The Risen Life.” I call it that to make one single point: the Resurrection is not something merely to believe about Jesus. It’s something to be lived. Let me repeat that: The Resurrection is not simply something to believe about Jesus. It is something to be lived. It is “the Risen Life.”
Now, when you think about resurrection, what comes to mind? I’m guessing that for most of us, something about Jesus and his physical body being re-animated is the answer, and we certainly have accounts in the New Testament that confirm that; we heard one today. We might also think of the story of Thomas in John’s gospel, the so-called Doubting Disciple who is invited to touch the wounds of Jesus; or we might think of the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus eats with his disciples, where he, there as well, invites them to touch his wounds, confirming his physicality. That for many is what resurrection is, and that I submit, is certainly part of the story, but it’s not what the radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would call “the rest of the story.”
The trouble is, we almost never hear about “the rest of the story,” these other ways of experiencing the risen Christ. And that’s because, as I said, for most Christians, the resurrection is something to believeabout Jesus and his body, not something to be lived.
That said, the author of Colossians, our Second Reading for today, would beg to differ. Take a look at verse one, if you would like. He writes, “If you have been raised with Christ, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”
Now, what do you notice here about the resurrection? It’s not a belief about what happened to the body of Jesus. It’s a present reality. The grammar here is present perfect, which means “an action in the past that is ongoing.” “If you have been raised with Christ,” the author says.
How, then, would we describe this version of Resurrection? Well, I submit we would call this innertransformation, such that we no longer live for ourselves, but, by setting our mind on Christ, at the right hand of God, we live as He did—namely, for others.
One scholar puts it like this: “The epistles—that is, the letters by Paul, or attributed to Paul in the New Testament—The epistles are where death and resurrection cease to be only something about Jesus, and become real for the lives of Jesus’s followers.”
That includes you and me, and that is what I call the Risen Life, a life to which this day and every day each of us are called to live. This is why I say that the resurrection is not merely something to believe about the body of Jesus. It’s something to be lived. It’s a new way of life to which God calls us each and every day.
Now, let me pause here for a moment and share a story of someone who was called to this new way of life that occurred on this side of the grave. Fifth grade math teacher Josh Davis’s panic attack started six months into the pandemic, a product of the stress of hybrid teaching, absentee students ,and irate parents. He lost weight and began to snap at his six- and 13-year-old sons. Some mornings he couldn’t get out of bed.
“I’ve always been proud of my ability to withstand pressure, yet I would break down in tears in the shower,” he remembers. In October of 2021, he resigned. “I quit my teaching job to save my health,” he says.
What pushed Josh to make this change? His response: “I was doing all sorts of stuff to get better. I tried meditation, a diet-change, exercise, breathing techniques (There’s an app for that, incidentally), tapping antidepressants, sleep aids. My therapist said I had to get a new profession, but I didn’t want to. Finally, my wife Heather told me it was time to leave teaching. She said, “Money is one thing, your health is another.”
Money is one thing, your health is another… What did Josh learn? His reply, “A paycheck isn’t worth chasing. Being outside and being with my family are the two things that fill my life up, and I felt like I was losing both, since I never had the energy left at the end of the day to go outside, let alone to play with my boys. Now I work from home.” He says, “We have less money to travel, but just being outside in my own yard, I feel the same kind of release as I did hiking the North Kaibab trail with my 13 year old son.”
Now obviously this story doesn’t mean that we should all go out and quit our jobs. I’m not telling you that. But it does raise a question for each of us, doesn’t it? If you hear God’s call to new life, to abundant life, to “the Risen Life,” or to the renewal of life; if you set your mind on Christ and live for others as he did, then your priorities change, don’t they? This change of priorities may very well reflect an inner transformation on your part—one I would call the Risen Life—or on the other hand, it may lead to an inner transformation, the kind to which God is calling you, the kind where the stone of the tomb is rolled away, and with Christ, you emerge, made anew.
And that’s what the Risen Life really is, an inner transformation such that we not only live for ourselves, but, by setting our mind on Christ, we live for others as he did. We are raised with Him, spiritually, metaphorically, figuratively, inwardly, to new life.
And that’s why I like the story about Josh Davis. He didn’t just quit teaching for his health, although that is certainly important. He did it to be a better father to his sons. That was his calling. That was his vocation.
But what about you and me? What ways might God be calling us to new life in Jesus Christ? Now you’ll notice I’m using the language “us,” not just you or me. For Jews and for early Christians, the resurrection wasn’t just about me and how my life is different. It’s about us and how as a congregation, we are the reconfigured presence of Christ in this world. This is why the Apostle Paul in his letters repeatedly refers to the church as “the Body of Christ.”
You’ll hear it in our liturgy, you’ll hear it in our music. This is why the great Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that “the congregation is Christ existing in the world.” Now, that’s an enormous responsibility, isn’t it? Especially for someone, for example, who’s the President of our congregation—you are the head of the risen Body of Christ in the world, Tim... This is an enormous responsibility, not just on Tim’s part or the Council’s part, but on all of our parts.
But it is also an opportunity for us to ask ourselves, how are we going to be there for other people who are struggling and hurting in this world, just as Christ was there? How are we going, for example, to show up for those in our faith community who mourn, like Dolly Smith, as she anticipates the loss of her husband, Mac, or Lloyd Rosenthal sitting here in the front, who grieves the loss of his wife, Debbie. How are we going to be Christ to them?
How, moreover, are we going to continue helping to improve the lives of those who are less fortunate, to the people Jesus refers to in the Gospel of Matthew as “the least of these.” How, indeed, are we going to make an angry, mean, uncivil world kinder, more just, more peaceful and more humane?
You see, that’s what the Risen Life is all about, Charlie Brown: being freed from excessive self-preoccupation to live as individuals and as a community for others, just as Christ lived for us now.
Here’s the best part. The inner transformation that can begin in this lifetime is complemented by the outer transformation of our bodies, which is promised in the life of the world to come, which brings us back to one person—who? [Jesus.]
(For those of you who don’t or aren’t able to join us regularly, my students, I used to be a professor, whenever they were struggling with the quiz, I’d always say, “Look, if you can’t get the answer, just put ‘Jesus,’ and I’ll give you partial credit!” So, the congregation here is trained to answer that way accordingly!)
The outer transformation—that brings us back to Jesus. In our Gospel reading for today, when Mary first encounters the physically risen Christ, who does she mistake him for? (I thought you were going to say the Lutheran pastor, because we are so, so much like Jesus…) [The gardener. ]
Yes, you’re absolutely right. The gardener. What does that tell you? To me, it suggests that Christ, as the first fruit of God’s new creation, has been outwardly transformed. Why else would she be unable to recognize him? His outer appearance has been transformed in a way that corresponds to the inner transformation to which you and I are invited in this life. In other words, the transformation of his physical body is a manifestation of what God has in store for us and the rest of the cosmos, at least, according to the book of Revelation.
Here, on the other hand, is what Paul says. “Listen,” he writes, “I will tell you a mystery. We will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will all be changed as Christ was.”
That is the promise. That is the faith of Paul, that is the faith of the author of Revelation, and that is the faith expressed in our historic creeds. So “be glad and rejoice,” as Psalm 118 says; the Risen Life for each of us is a both-and: the transformation of our inner being, here and now, and the transformation of our outer being, which is promised to us because of the risen Christ and His resurrection in the life of the world to come.
One is available to us each and every day, the other promised as our future; one to be lived, the other indeed to be believed. For He is risen, yes ,we say, but in him, and this is what I want you to remember today: We are risen too!
And all God’s people said, “Amen!”