Thread:

I'm 27 years old, and this is the first time I've missed an Easter Sunday service. It wasn't after I moved away from home. It wasn't when my faith was at its weakest and my soul ached. It wasn't even when I was on crutches with a throbbing ankle.

It was today.

As my dad noted in his Easter sermon - taped in an empty sanctuary - it feels almost as though we are a church in exile. The good news is that we aren't alone in this experience. God's people have long had to learn how to be a holy people in the midst of incredible challenges.

Whether it was the Israelites in the Old Testament, under foreign occupation. Whether it was the early Christian church, worshiping in catacombs in fear for their lives. Whether it was any of the 20th century churches trying to survive under Communism or other dictatorships.

The disciples, too, felt disconnected during the first hours of that first Easter morning. They had watched, to their horror, on Good Friday as their rabbi, their friend, their hope for the future, was brutally beaten and executed. All seemed lost.

The truth is that, because of Easter, we who are alive in this world are in exile from our true home. “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

We are no longer defined or claimed by this world, by our sin, or by our sorrows. We are defined by the resurrection - by our Risen Lord. And so, disconnected and in exile, let us nonetheless joyously proclaim together the cornerstone of our faith:

I know that my Redeemer lives!