The Week that Changed Everything
Easter 2A-26
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago
Jesus appeared to Mary Easter morning. She told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” Yet, the disciples remain huddled in the place where they had shared the Last Supper with Jesus. They locked the doors because they were afraid.
Jesus came among them and said, “Peace be with you. As the father has sent me so I send you,” and he breathed on them (John 20:19). The word in Greek is “emphusao.” It’s the same word used in Genesis when God breathed life into the earth-man Adam (Genesis 2:7). It’s the word the prophet Ezekiel used when God breathed upon the slain in the valley of dry bones. The bones took on flesh and lived. (Ezekiel 37:9). Today’s gospel is the only occurrence of ‘emphusao’ in the New Testament.
Later, we know the disciples’ lives will change completely. Later, they will catch the divine breath of the Holy Spirit, ‘emphusao’. They will carry the gospel to the four corners of the earth. They will confidently testify before judges and kings about the Messiah –but that first night, and even a full week later, despite Mary’s wonderful words, despite the appearance of Jesus himself, despite receiving the gift of the Spirit, they remain huddled and hidden. Jesus has emerged from death into life while disciples have entombed themselves in the upper room.
Alleluia. Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!) It was the week that changed everything. The disciples are asking themselves what just happened? Easter takes time. Resurrection cannot be rushed. God is patient with us.
“You cannot read the stories of the resurrected Jesus as accounts of life triumphing over death without contending with layers of grief, mourning, and pain. A beloved mother has lost her first-born child; students and disciples are grieving the death of a teacher, confidant, and friend. Everyone has borne witness to the excruciating pain of the cross, the consequences of daring to defy empire, and the cost of declaring Jesus as Messiah…In the chaos of this time, the risen Savior shows up again, and again, and again—not as a ghostly, ethereal being but as wounded flesh. ‘Look at my hands and my feet,’ he says… ‘Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have’ (Luke 24:39).
“By sharing his wounds, Jesus reveals that our wounds are places for God’s healing presence and love: This is a theology for the wounded, for those who are still healing, and even for those who aren’t quite ready for healing. The risen Savior insistently welcomes the doubting, the uncertain, and the grieving to touch and see that he is real and present and here with us. The risen Savior, who had been abandoned, denied, betrayed, and crucified, doesn’t hide his wounds or rush their healing. As wounded people encased in the frailties of human flesh, can we, too, summon enough grace and kindness to acknowledge that our own very human wounds need time to heal?” (Yolanda Pierce, The Wounds Are the Witness: Black Faith Weaving Memory into Justice and Healing (Broadleaf Books, 2025), 131–132, 133–135.)
“Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually…″ We instinctively recoil when we feel pain. We withdraw into ourselves. And yet, life also teaches that “those who seek to completely avoid painful encounter with the unseen are doomed to live [prideful], boring, and superficial lives. (Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer)
Jesus pries open the tomb we would bury ourselves in. Fresh air and daylight are essential for healing. Scars marking old wounds tell a story. Emotional scars caused by trauma, loss or humiliation reveal a lot about us when, finally, either by courage or therapy, or both, they are allowed to speak.
Once again Easter finds us attempting to metabolize seismic events of the past week. What the heck just happened? Some point to this Tuesday, April 7, 2026, as another day upon which history has turned. This Tuesday, the US president made genocidal threats against a whole civilization in what was an unforgettable and nearly ridiculous caricature of the folly of war. The same day, the AI company, Anthropic, announced a new large language model so powerful that even its billionaire class overlords were afraid. Apparently, Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview can hack any and every computer system in the world and allow any teenager to hijack those systems. Security systems controlling our water, electricity, airplanes, banks, government data, and whatever are all vulnerable. We could probably add to the list of seismic shocks we have experienced in the week, and the year that was.
I do not recount these facts to fill you with fear but to point at what finally drew the disciples from the upper room and to what can open the way forward for us now—hope. Is it possible that a war which seized the world’s attention by imperiling the global economy and reaped so much innocent blood could be changing the perception of war itself? Could the AI revolution force nations to cross the threshold to true global community to build new international rules and norms? Yes? Maybe? Perhaps? (Robert Wright, “The future arrived this week. And boy are we not ready for it!”, THE EARTHLING, April 11, 2026.)
Easter taught the disciples to invest their energy, their creativity, their whole selves in the hope for a better, more just and loving world. Resurrection gave them the courage to run toward the opportunities which inevitably emerge from chaos. They ran toward daylight. They abandoned fear and embraced hope.
A recent poll found 63% of American adults now agree the US is at a significant turning point. (Data via YouGov). It’s been another one of those weeks that changed everything. Easter lifts our eyes to the horizon to search out and follow the signs of hope no matter how improbable. Resurrection means the future is unwritten. Easter means our future is not determined by the past.
“We don’t need to wait for death to experience resurrection. We can begin resurrection today by living connected to God. Resurrection happens every time we love someone even though they were not very loving to us. At that moment we have been brought to new life. Every time we decide to trust and begin again, even after repeated failures, we are resurrected. Every time we refuse to become negative, cynical, or hopeless, we are experiencing the Risen Christ. We don’t have to wait for it later. Resurrection is always possible now ” (Richard Rohr, “Resurrection is Possible Now,” Daily Meditations, 4/10/26).
Yes, Love changes everything. Love changes fear to strength. Love changes enemies into brothers and sisters. Love replaces despair with hope. Love is the seed from which Easter springs to life. Love gives birth to resurrection. Doubt and belief—are not opposites. They are soulmates. Questions, conversation, dialogue and collaboration pave the path that lead toward a more hopeful future. Let us arise! Let us arise! Let us arise, step from our tomb, and go forward.
