EASTER 2026

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

It was Holy Week last year (Holy Wednesday, to be precise) when I was diagnosed with depression.
My first thought was, “Really? Now? During Holy Week?” followed immediately by, “No, that can’t be. I’m Korean. We’re supposed to suffer.”

As I was grappling with this new and unwanted revelation, a small thought began to emerge from the depths of my brain: While it was still dark.

It was John’s description of Easter morning when Mary went to the tomb. And listen, John is either my second least favorite or my least favorite Gospel. It just depends on my mood. Luke, Mark, Matthew/John, John/Matthew. However, my favorite resurrection stories are in John. John’s account of Easter is what I use for my sermon.

While it was still dark.

And just like that, the Spirit gave me the idea for my Easter sermon.
Granted, it was way too late in the week. Late enough that I started feeling anxious.
But now I had my sermon.

While it was still dark.

But it wouldn’t stay dark forever. The sun was going to rise very soon for Mary.
And while, for me, the season tumbled into a new kind of darkness, I knew it wouldn’t stay dark for long.

If you want to watch that sermon:

This year, nothing that exciting has happened during Holy Week that I could turn into a sermon. But I’ve felt more stuck than I did last year.
To which I posted:

I think what was happening is that my Easter sermon overlaps a lot with chapter 11 of the book I’m working on.
I was stuck on chapter 11, and therefore I was stuck on the Easter sermon.
And I was stuck stuck. Like, there’s no better way to describe it than mental constipation.

A few days earlier, something happened within the church.
I felt the urge to scramble for an answer, but I resisted.
I felt the urge to gently push back, but I kept my thoughts and questions to myself.
Everything is fine, I reminded myself. If this is the most stressful thing in my life right now, then I’m doing pretty well.

And then I randomly stumbled across this quote.
I don’t know much about saints, and my knowledge of early Christian writing is… minimal.
I don’t know much about St. Julian of Norwich except that she’s a mystic.
But I came across one of her quotes:
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
I know the urge to add an “s” to “thing” is strong. But leave it. It’s grammatically correct in Middle English. Apparently, “thing” here is a collective noun meaning “every kind of thing” or “everything.”

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

I sat with that for a while.
Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well.
Kidding. “All shall be well” and “All Too Well” share similar words but mean very different things. Julian and Taylor.

Anyhoo.

All shall be well…

Looking back at last year, yeah. In certain moments, it felt like nothing would resolve. But a year later, either things did resolve or they just stopped mattering as much.

Then I started thinking about my time as a church planter over the past almost seven years.
I almost said, “Life was so much simpler back then.”
But I caught myself.

Was it actually simpler? Only if you’re six years removed from it emotionally.
It feels simpler now because it’s in the past. I know how the story ends. I know the players. I know the moves. I know the pitfalls. It’s like playing that same level of Super Mario Brothers for the thousandth time.

That’s when it hit me.
Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.
And it’s not truthful. Because nostalgia isn’t just remembering the past.
It’s longing for a version of your life that made sense while you were living it.

Before I cut myself off, I was thinking about how much easier things were when there were only 20 people on a Sunday.
But if I’m honest, not knowing whether anyone would show up was incredibly anxiety-inducing.
No, it wasn’t easier back then. It just feels like it.

And then that second thought hit me:
Do not hold on to me.

It’s what Jesus says to Mary after revealing himself.
Lol. I don’t like how I worded that. But I’m leaving it there so you can appreciate how mature I am.

When Mary realizes that the gardener is actually Jesus, she reaches for him. She wants to hold on.
And Jesus responds, Do not hold on to me.
Maybe Mary was trying to hold on to who Jesus was.
To go back to how things were before the cross.
And Jesus is telling her: there is no going back.
We move forward into something new.

At the time of writing this, it’s Holy Saturday.
I’m wearing all my Dynamo gear because there’s a game tonight.
I haven’t run through the sermon yet, but we’re making a quick stop at church before heading to the stadium.

Here’s the manuscript for the Easter sermon.

I don’t know what will change, if anything, by tomorrow.
You never really know how it’s going to flow until you say it out loud.
And I like to know how long it actually is.

What you hear on Sunday might be different from what’s below.

But here it is.

Happy Easter, beloved friends.
No matter how bleak the world feels, there is hope. There is always hope.
For Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Can’t speak much on the Episcopal Church because this is the only Episcopal Church I’ve worked at (minus a 6 month stint at st. Andrew’s).
And I know the episcopal church is often called Catholic Lite.
However, Mosaic, i think is fair to say, is Episcopal Lite.

But in the Methodist Church, (And I know for a fact it happens in TEC, but like I said, I’ve never had first person experience).
There’s a desire for younger clergy.
They want younger clergy because they want younger families.
They want to hear kids make noise because it reminds them of life… because for the past decade or so, there have been minimal presence of kids… and everyone’s always reminded of not just their mortality but the decline in vitality of their beloved church.
So they want young clergy to infuse new life into them. So often young clergy, some fresh out of seminary, are sent to churches that want younger clergy.

Now, I’d argue that one of the worst things you can do to a pastor straight out of seminary is to send them to a church that’s been in steady decline for years.
The young clergy can end up being completely demoralized and/or they pick up really bad habits that stay with them throughout their career.

Why?

Because, while the church wants a young clergy to bring in young families, what the people don’t realize is that in order to change… things need to change.

So the young clergy fresh out of seminarian has dreams; visions; ideas; they’re filled with hope. They learn what the strengths of the church are and how the church can utilize that, leverage that to connect with more people.

So the young clergy starts sharing ideas, visions, offering things the church wanted from the clergy.
And instead of willingness to go forward, the church responds with resistance.
Well… we’ve never done it that way.
Mmmm… that’s not how we do things around here.
Nope. We don’t want to do that.

After a bit of time, you learn that these type of churches are asking their clergy for something that is impossible — yes, even with God what these churches ask for is impossible:
We want to change everything without changing anything.
Can you do all the new things without taking away the things that help us be comfortable?
In Jesus’s words, they want new wine but in the old wineskin.
Because if the people don’t want to change, nothing is going to change them.)

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion.
The thing is, nostalgia isn’t just remembering the past.
It’s longing for a version of your life that made sense when you were living in it.
2016: MAGA
When asked when was America great?
Everyone answered around the time they were young.
of course they did…

We long for the version of life that made sense…

And kids… I know it may feel not that great being a kid… but I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat. Adulting is overrated and truth is, we’re making it up as we go along.
(While I have you here, I just want to give a shoutout to your parents. They were really cool, fun loving people. Then y’all came around. And now they are the way they are because of you. So take responsibility of that. )

Nostalgia also edits; filters; airbrushes the past as well.
It remembers only the highlights and forgets the parts that were actually hard.

So “that season was complicated” becomes “that season was good.”
Rather than missing the past, what we really long for is the version of the past that nostalgia has rewritten in our heads.

Change is difficult. Even when change is for the better, there’s a part of us that still yearns for the past.

Nathanael: can’t help thinking about how small he was…
Mosaic:

When things fall apart
when life shifts
when something ends
we don’t just want healing.
We want to go back.
We don’t just grieve what we’ve lost.
We grieve the version of life we thought we were going to have.

In the garden, Martha finally recognizes who she’s been talking with.
After all the confusion.
After all the running.
After all the weeping.
Jesus says her name.

“Mary.”

Mary, relieved… is that the word? that Jesus is in fact alive goes to hold him — isn’t that the normal reaction? to hold; to hug; to cling tightly.

Jesus cuts her off and says, “Do not hold on to me.”
It’s kinda weird; ruins the vibe
how would you respond to someone who you loved was presumed dead and now is alive?
I mean, I hold Nathanael just an extra bit tighter when hearing news of young children on the spectrum drowning.

If I’m Mary, I’m not letting go.
I’m hugging him. I’m grabbing onto him like, “you’re not going anywhere this time.”
We saw you die. We went through all of that, and now you’re telling me not to hold on?

I want you to notice that Jesus emulate MC Hammer and saying, ‘u can’t touch this.’ If you know that reference, we’re old.

He says, do not hold on to me.
Perhaps for today, we can view Jesus words in a more figurative way than a literal one.
Maybe Mary wasn’t just trying to hold on to Jesus.
Maybe She wants to hold on to what was.
Maybe She’s expecting; she’s _hoping_ that everything will go back to the way things were:
before the betrayal.
before the trial.
before the crucifixion.
before the tomb.
before everything fell apart.

She wants to start right where everything left off.
She wants a mulligan; a reset. Mary is assuming that everything will go back to normal. The disciples will be reunited with Jesus; they’d go doing the exact same thing they did 3 years earlier.

And Jesus says ‘no.’
Jesus is telling Mary — and us — that resurrection isn’t about going back.
It’s not about returning to life as it was.
Resurrection doesn’t restore what was — it transforms what is.

Mary is not being denied Jesus.
Mary is being invited into something new.
A new kind of relationship.
A new way of knowing him.
A new way of following him.

Not by holding on…
but by moving forward.

Oh how difficult moving forward is.
Nostalgia can be one powerful drug as well.
It has a way reminding us that — even if the past was a living hell… it was at least a hell I was familiar with.
And that familiarity has the power us pulling us down and imprisoning us.
While in the desert, after escaping enslavement in Egypt, the Israelites say this to Moses:
If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Just think about this…
They are complaining that Moses gave them freedom.
They think back to the time in Egypt. At least we had snacks!
But they forgot they were slaves in Egypt.

Hebrew Word for Egypt: Mitzrayim 
But Mitzrayim has a double meaning:
Mitzrayim also means a narrow place; a place of limitations.

So we’re not just talking about a physical and a geographical place — it’s also refers to the condition of our hearts, souls, and spirits.
which means, the story of Exodus, God leading God’s people out of mitzrayim is not a one-time event that happened ages ago.

God is still leading us out of our narrow places; out of confinement; out of places with limitations.
The thing about mitzrayim is that it forces you to accept the that the limitations of your soul and spirit is the norm.

That you were not meant for more. That this is your lot. This is who you were.
So when you step out into the open — we’re confronted with fear more than joy.
The odd thing about freedom is that it can give us a sense of being trapped as well.
It’s like having too many options — you don’t know what to do.
And we start thinking about how comfortable our confinement was.
So instead of moving forward, nostalgia pulls us back.
Back into the toxic relationships
Back into the situations that sucks the life out of us;

We say things like, “I just want things to go back to normal.”
But what if normal is gone?
What if the thing you’re trying to hold onto is the very thing keeping you from recognizing what God is doing now?

Mary almost misses resurrection.
Because she was looking for what used to be.

I’m willing to bet, some of us are in our mitzrayims, holding tightly.
to what was.
to what we thought life would look like.
Holding on to expectations that didn’t come true.
Holding on to a version of ourselves that no longer fits.

And Jesus isn’t saying, “Stop caring.”
He’s saying, “You can’t carry that into what I’m doing next.”
Resurrection is not God giving you your old life back.
Resurrection is God bringing new life out of what you thought was over.
And new life does not look like the old life.
It’s unfamiliar.
It’s uncomfortable.
It requires trust.
It requires letting go.

Jesus doesn’t say, “Don’t touch me.”
He says, “Do not hold on to me.”
Right after that, he gives Mary a direction.

He says, “Go.”
Go to the others.
Go tell them.
Go step into what’s next.

So Mary leaves the garden with one sentence:

“I have seen the Lord.”

Something shifted within her.
Grief didn’t disappear… but it didn’t win.
Darkness was still real… but it wasn’t all there was.

I think this is what Easter offers us.
Not certainty.
Not the answers to all our questions.
But… just enough of a shift to realize this is not the end. That the worst thing will never be the final thing.
Just enough light for you to see and take that step forward.

In the words of famous philosopher, Dory the Blue Tang Fish:
Just keep swimming.
Keep moving forward, even if it’s a baby step; even if the only you can do is doggy paddle.
don’t go back.
Don’t return to what shrinks you.
Don’t return to the stories that keep you small.
Don’t return to what felt familiar but was never life.
Keep going forward.

Step out of the narrow place.
Step out of what has held you.
Step into what is opening in front of you.
You don’t have to have it all figured out.
You’ve seen Jesus.
You’ve seen love in action.
So you’ve seen enough to know this is not the end.
Enough to take one more step.

Sometimes that’s all resurrection looks like.
One step out of the tomb. Into life.

So take that step forward.
For Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed.