Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026
From The Pastor
The Resurrection of Jesus is the root, source, and origin of Christian joy. What is Christian joy and how do I find it? Christian joy is a deep confident trust in God through Christ in the redemption of his death and Resurrection. Christian joy grows from faith in the assurance of God’s love revealed in the life, suffering, death, and Resurrection of Jesus for our salvation. Joy in Christ is rooted in the promise of eternal life with God made possible through the power of divine love revealed in the Lord’s Resurrection.
The power of God as the essence of unchanging love defeats the lie of evil and the disorder of sin, which breaks the chains of death through reconciliation gained in Christ. The reality of human sin, weakness, and failure cannot and should not be denied. Embracing the promises of Christ with the surety of faith through repentance and the grace of conversion, reveals the power of divine love as greater than sin and death. Love wins. God in Christ accepts into himself all human sin, weakness, and failure as if it were his own, and in his own body takes it to the Cross. The Resurrection of Jesus defeats the lie of evil and the disorder of sin breaking the chains of death unto eternal life.
Jesus was not a failure. In the standards of the world, the death of Jesus appears as a colossal defeat. In the greed, envy, jealousy, and the constant evidence of sin, it is easy to be skeptical and doubting that the world is any different after Jesus rose from the dead. This is even more tempting in times of chaos and confusion when the world feels so out of balance. Times of darkness and doubt are times when we are called ever more ardently to the constancy of our faith. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus is ever present.
God needs, and in fact uses our sin, failures, and doubts to lead us to the grace and the transformation of conversion. God uses our weakness to draw us to himself to awaken us to our dependance on God. Human beings are naturally drawn to the lie of perfection and the illusion of self-sufficiency. I can do it for myself, by myself. This is the lie and the deception of evil. The power of love is transformative and redemptive when we surrender our weakness and failures to the mercy of God’s grace. This is the invitation to a deeper relationship with God that admits the reality of our human vulnerability. I cannot save myself. I need God in a living relationship of faith, hope, and trust in the best and the worst of times. This relationship is the seedbed that grows Christian joy. I am not alone. I am connected and I belong to God who loves me as I am, despite whatever sin or failures are mine. God makes us worthy.
If I stare at myself, it becomes a study in self-weakness. Human beings are simply not strong enough to deny the imperfections that we all have nor the ability to perfect ourselves. If we keep our eyes and our hearts on Jesus, it becomes an invitation of self-surrender. Surrendering is hard. It is vulnerable. It calls for trust, faith, and honesty. To realize the joy of Christian love, we must learn to let the love in, to accept it in a living and active way within ourselves. Love is not an idea, a learned principle, or a self-created reality. Self-love is a gift from God, affirmed and made effective in the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus. The greatest task may be to simply get ourselves out of the way. The truth of God’s love is already in us through our creation and Baptism. If it were not there, why do we so intensely seek love all our lives?
God can somehow work through every sin, failure, and mistake we have ever made. Consider the Exultant of the Easter Vigil. “Oh, happy fault, Oh necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a redeemer. …What good would life have been to us had Christ not come as our redeemer.”
In the dying and rising of Jesus, sin is forgiven, guilt is washed away, shame is washed clean. Our dignity in God is restored in Christ rising from the dead. In the Resurrection we are invited to realize and embrace our identity in Christ as loved, forgiven, redeemed, and made whole despite the imperfections of life that are inevitable. To realize Christian joy, we must accept and take in the love God offers us in Christ. The love of Christ sets the heart and soul free to live in love, and to be vulnerable to love that defeats shame, guilt, and self-rejection. This love allows a person to live freely beyond themself in true relationships and connections of love with others.
Joy is a discipline. The world ploys against the truth of Divine love through the enticements of easy pleasure and perceived happiness. Joy grows from love, gratitude, faith, prayer, service, and connectedness to God and others. This is the nature of what it means to be human. It is what we were made for and what we all want. God loves you. Christ is risen. Receive him. Make him your center. Love yourself into the joy of Christ now risen from the dead. Happy Easter.
Father John Esper
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