The Good News is... alive in the world! | Easter 2026

Matthew 28:1-10

Goodness is stronger than evil  

Love is stronger than hate. 

Light is stronger than darkness. 

Life is stronger than death. 

These words, were first penned by Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of the Anglican Church in South Africa, and one of the giants of the South Africa’s liberation struggle. 

And originally he wrote these words as a prayer. 

Goodness is stronger than evil  

Love is stronger than hate. 

Light is stronger than darkness. 

Life is stronger than death. 

When I think about all the terrible things Desmond Tutu experienced in his lifetime— It’s hard to imagine how he could write these words. 

Desmond was born to a poor family. And at a young age he became sick with polio, which would effect him for the rest of his life. His father was an alcoholic, who, when drinking, was prone to violence.  

And all of this was intensified under the brutal system of apartheid that reigned in South Africa. Much like Jim and Jane Crow in the United States, apartheid did more than divide people by race. It built a world where opportunity flowed in one direction—towards communities of White South Africans, where wealth, education, and good jobs became concentrated—while Black South Africans were left with less and less. 

As an adult, Tutu was forced to leave his teaching career after a new apartheid law devastated public funding for schools that taught black children.. 

It was then, after yet another setback, that Tutu decided to pursue a call to serve in God’s church. 

As a priest, Desmond Tutu fiercely resisted apartheid, believing it stood in direct opposition to God’s will for Creation. 

And it was only after that system was brought to an end—when the regime was forced to relent, to free its political prisoners, and to lift its boot from the necks of the oppressed—only then, did Tutu move forward towards the task of reconciliation between whites and black communities.  

It was in this new democratic South Africa—one year before Tutu would lead the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—the restorative justice body  established to heal the nation after apartheid—that Tutu would write that prayer. 

Goodness is stronger than evil  

Light is stronger than darkness. 

If I’m honest… in a world like ours, words like these can begin to sound like platitudes. Like cheap chocolate bunnies—sweet, but often hollow.

But knowing why and when Tutu writes these, helps me to see that these words are not platitudes. 

They are not hollow. 

They words are Good News. 

These words are the Good News. 

Love is stronger than hate. 

Life is stronger than death. 

These words are a summary of the entire Easter story.

The source of our hope in Christ—A description of our resurrection hope.

And these words articulate the deepest, more sacred commitments of a man, and a people, who knew struggle, suffering, and the sting of death.  

So if you are struggling, these words are for you. 

The easter story is for you. 

And if you are suffering, these words are for you. 

The easter story is for you. 

And if you have felt the sting of death, these words are for you. 

Because the Easter story is for all of us. 

It may be true that the Easter Story begins well before Jesus birth—perhaps even before the birth of the world. 

But this morning we will begin the story with Palm Sunday. We remember how Jesus’ jubilate march through the streets of Jerusalem, mocked the Roman Empire’s rule just as much as it filled Jesus followers with hope and expectations. Here was the Messiah, who would bring about redemption, justice, and peace for the people of Israel! 

We then remember the grief of Good Friday. Jesus’s sudden betrayal, by one of his inner circle… the arrest, the trial, and his death… It had all come as a shock to his followers. They were heartbroken. Their hopes shattered into pieces. 

And so, the movement Jesus had started… begins to fall apart as well. 

Some of his followers go into hiding. The rest scatter. 

They packed up and go home. 

They return to their homes, their old lives.

What else is there to do?

The death of the Messiah was awful. 

A humiliating, public lynching. 

Evil, hate-filled, 

slow, brutal. 

His death violent and final. 

Those who remained understood the danger. 

To be associated with a crucified leader was to put your own life at risk.

And so—of course—it was the women who stayed closest to Jesus.

Matthew tells us it was the two Marys—Mary Magdalene and the “other” Mary, likely the mother of James and Joseph. 

The two Marys are the first witnesses—the first to encounter the risen Christ. 

Maybe they remembered what Jesus had said… that he would rise again.

Or maybe they didn’t know what to believe.

They come anyway.

They do what they have been taught to do. 

They are doing what love does in the face of death. Because as one commentator points out, “Even in difficult times, someone has to wipe down the countertops and put food in the fridge.” 

Except, instead of casseroles, the women had brought with them an ointment made of spices, intended to anoint Jesus body. 

And so these women, heavy with grief and probably a little fear,  walking through the darkness unknowing they are about the encounter the Lord. 

Matthew’s Gospel, perhaps more than any of the accounts, paints a compelling picture of the the seismic shift occurring during this Holy Week. At the moment of Jesus’ death, an earthquake broke out. 

Then again on that frist Easter morning, an angel descends in dazzling brilliance, rolling back the stone. The guards—agents of empire—collapse as if dead. And then once again—the ground gives 

It was Jesus, who, in a sermon, first talked about earthquakes as the labor pains of a world being made new. 

Later, the apostle Paul would pick up that same image, writing of creation groaning as it labors toward redemption.

In Matthew’s telling, these earthquakes are like the  birth pangs of Jesus resurrection. 

The earthly tomb has become a womb of new life. 

And just as a seed must split open—cracking apart, pushing against the soil, disrupting what surrounds it in order to grow—so too does the earth trembles as a new creation breaks forth… as God raises Christ from the dead. 

And there the two Marys are.. Not just as witness… but as midwives to this new life. 

And it fills them with a thrilling wonder—And so, to them, the angel says “Do not be afraid!’

Jesus has gone ahead… Go on and meet him in Galilee! 

And so they go… and on the road to Galilee… he meet the Mary’s and says -- HI! 

What?! 

It’s too good to be true. 

And Jesus gives them the same words assurance they angel gave them: 

“Do not be afraid! Go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; I’ll meet you there!”

The two Mary’s are the first people to tell us of the resurrection! The first to go out and tell the Good News! 

And like the mustard seed that Jesus told us what like the Kingdom of God—that grows wildly beyond all our expectation—the good news of Jesus resurrection cannot be contained! 

The scriptures even tell us that the Roman authorities even cook up some fake to discredit the women and so that people would not believe them.. So that the Jesus movement would stay dead in the ground. 

And this is where the story turns toward us.

Because God loves the world enough to enter into it— to send Jesus among us— to show us just how strong love really is.

Because the truth is, so much of what we call love feels fragile. 

Relationships end. Families fracture. 

Every person we have ever loved… will one day die.

But God’s love— that life-giving Spirit, that life-affirming force— does not die.

It outlasts our bodies. 

It meets us in life… and it meets us even in death.

Love never fails.

And that kind of radical, redeeming love is not something that suddenly emerged in the bright sun of a new day. Resurrection begins in the shadows.

New life begins where we cannot yet see it— in the womb, in the soil, in the dark.

And so even when the world feels full of death and despair… even when we are disillusioned… even when we cannot imagine how anything could change—

God is still at work. Laboring. Groaning. Bringing forth new life.

The Easter story should not be something we just remember once a year, when we get dressed up and go to church. When we we share a special meal with family, when we have fun hunting for colorful easter eggs, and delight in the wonders of spring. These special reminders are nice, but its not the whole of the easter story. 

No, every day—whether it is sunny and bright, and the news is good, or the whole world seems to be on fire—every day we are invited into the easter story. 

Every day we are called into new life, into resurrection, into hope.  

And so this Easter Sunday, we gather not only to remember this story with our minds, but to enter into it—with our bodies, our hearts, and our spirits—enter into so fully, that even on those days when the world outside is a hot mess… or those days when we are a hot mess inside… we do not forget that… 

Goodness is stronger than evil  

Love is stronger than hate. 

Light is stronger than darkness. 

Life is stronger than death. 

The Good News is alive… and out and about in the world! 

Rev. Delaney preached this message on Easter Sunday, 4.5.26.