Easter 2026 - Week 1 - Day 1 with Intro

Happy Easter

We have stood at the cross.

We allowed the darkness of Good Friday to linger. We listened to the final words, watched the last breath, and felt the weight of silence settle over the tomb. We did not rush past the grief. We did not hurry toward triumph. We waited. In short – you were good children of God.

Thankfully, the Christian story does not end in waiting.

From the earliest days of the church, the apostles preached Easter as a turning point in history. Death had been confronted and overcome. The long night of exile was ending. The future promised by the prophets had begun to break into the present. What seemed finished on Friday was, in truth, just beginning.

The resurrection of Jesus is not only about life after death. It is about life after the death of death.

And that changes everything.

I fear sometimes we sit in our little towns like Coldspring or – wherever – and think these events are isolated celebrations on a church calendar. They belong together. They tell one story — the story of heaven reclaiming earth through the risen and reigning Christ.

The Journey Ahead
Over the coming weeks, we will trace that movement carefully:

• Week 1 — New Creation Begins
  The resurrection as the inauguration of a renewed world.
• Week 2 — Forgiven and Reconciled
  The cross tears down hostility and creates one new humanity.
• Week 3 — The Kingdom Reframed
  God’s reign extends beyond national restoration to a global people.
• Week 4 — The Enthroned King
  The ascension as Christ’s coronation over every power.
• Week 5 — Promise of the Spirit
  God’s presence moving from temple to Spirit-filled people.
• Week 6 — Heaven Comes to Earth
  Pentecost and the birth of a unified, devoted community.

Each week builds on the last. Together they reveal what Easter truly means: not only that Jesus lives, but that the world is being made new.

We can jump right into day one - of the New Creation...

Tiny bit of editorial warning - I am posting  Monday - Friday. The days are not actual days from the bible.  For example Day one (our Monday) is actually the events of Easter Sunday - the day of resurrection. Make sense?  

Week 1 — New Creation Begins
Monday — The First Day of the New Week

New Testament Scripture
John 20:1
“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.”

Old Testament Scripture
Genesis 1:3–4
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good…”

The Dawn of a Different World
John tells us that the resurrection happened “on the first day of the week.” That detail is deliberate. He could have written “after the Sabbath.” Instead, he echoes the language of beginnings. I mentioned Genesis – in the early service yesterday.

Scripture opens with darkness and the first day of creation. Into that darkness, God speaks light. Time begins. Order emerges. Life unfolds.

In Genesis, the first day begins when God speaks light into darkness. In John’s Gospel, the first day begins with light breaking into a grave. The parallel is not subtle. The God who once called the world into being has acted again — this time within history, within death itself.

This is why the resurrection cannot be reduced to a private spiritual comfort. It is not only that Jesus lives. It is that a new order of life has begun.

First Fruits of a New Age

The resurrection of Jesus is not the same as resuscitation. Lazarus was raised, but he would die again. Jesus rises into a form of embodied life that death can no longer master. Paul later calls Him “the first fruits of those who have died” (1 Corinthians 15:20).

This is an important point - First fruits are not an isolated event; they signal a harvest. I mention this a lot on Sundays – for us all to be bearing fruit.

When Christ rises, He does not step back into the old world as it was. He becomes the beginning of what it will be.

The prophets had long spoken of renewal — of deserts blooming, of exile ending, of death swallowed up forever. Easter morning is the first visible sign that those promises are underway. The future has begun to press into the present.

Early Christians understood this. That is why they gathered on Sunday  - and not the Jewish Saturday of Sabbath.

They were marking more than a memory; they were acknowledging a new reality. The first day had become the Lord’s Day because it signaled that history had turned.

The old week ended in crucifixion.
A new week begins in resurrection.

Living on the First Day
If new creation has begun, then Christian life is not defined by waiting alone. It is defined by participation.

We still inhabit a world where darkness lingers. John is careful to note that it was “still dark” when Mary arrived. Resurrection does not instantly erase suffering. But it changes the trajectory of the story.

Because Christ is risen, decay does not have the final word. Because He lives, forgiveness is not naïve. Because the grave is empty, reconciliation is not futile.

To belong to Jesus is to belong to the morning.

That reshapes ordinary faithfulness. When we forgive, we live as if hostility belongs to the old age. When we pursue unity, we act as if division has already been judged. When we persevere in hope, we declare that death’s reign has been broken.

The first day has dawned whether the world recognizes it or not.
The question is not whether Easter happened.

The question is whether our lives reflect that the week has turned.

Your turn - does it?

Prayer
Risen Lord,
You stepped out of the grave at the dawn of a new world.
Teach us to live as people of that first day.
Let Your light break through our fear, our division, and our doubt.
Make our lives signs that new creation has begun.
Amen.