April 5 - Easter 2026 - FORGET RELIGION. FIND RESURRECTION.

FORGET RELIGION. FIND RESURRECTION.

Religion, at its worst, is a country club with better music.

Religion failed us. But love — actual love — that's a different conversation entirely.

But here’s what I need you to hear:

• Easter is not about religion.
• It’s about a resurrection.
• And those are two completely different things.

It wasn’t just “good.” It was shalom.

Shalom is wholeness. Perfect, wholeness.

In this circle is God’s creation.
Complete. Unbroken.

Everything exactly where it belongs.

That’s the world God designed.

That’s what God wanted.

That’s what God still wants.

Sin is the moment humanity decided to live outside the design.

And when that happened, the circle broke. Shalom shattered.

What was alive began to die.

What was whole became fractured.

What was connected came apart.

That’s the whole world groaning under the weight of a shattered shalom.

You can’t fix a broken circle by working harder inside it.

“Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.”
— John 20:1 (NLT)

“They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, ‘Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!’” — Luke 24:2-6 (NLT)

Death didn’t win. And neither did religion.

Jesus didn’t come to patch it. He came to restore it. Completely.

And when he did, he was saying something. He was saying:

• This is not the end of the story.
• Shalom is possible again.
• The circle can be whole.

”‘Dear woman, why are you crying?’ Jesus asked her. ‘Who are you looking for?’ She thought he was the gardener. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.’ ‘Mary!’ Jesus said.” — John 20:15-16 (NLT)

The risen Jesus — the one who just conquered death, the one the angels are talking about,

the most significant moment in the history of the universe — his first move is to find a grieving woman in a garden. And say her name.

That is not religion.

That is resurrection.

• Religion keeps its distance.
• Religion makes you earn the moment.
• Religion says: get it together and then come back.

Which means —

• You don’t have to have it figured out.
• You don’t have to be cleaned up.
• You don’t have to pretend.

“For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” — Romans 6:4 (NLT)

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” — 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)

• Not to be religious at people.
• Not to hand them a list of rules.
• But to serve them.
• To show up for them.
• To be present with them in their still-dark, stone-still-in-place moments.

And the stone was already gone.

That’s what Easter does. That’s what religion could never do for you.

• You don’t move the stone.
• You don’t have to.
• It’s already been moved.