Sermon on Luke 24:13-35

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

The words in our Gospel reading that always break my heart are: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

These two disciples tell the stranger on the road that they “had hoped.” They had lived in a state of hope until that stopped. They don’t have that hope anymore.

They had followed the rabbi they had hoped was the Messiah, “the one to redeem Israel,” but he had been executed by the Roman Empire. Most of his disciples fled the scene, trying to escape a similar fate. We read last week about most of them hiding in a locked room, fearful of the authorities.

These two disciples seem to have decided to skip town altogether.Once they were out of immediate danger and telling their story to a stranger on the road, I wonder if their shock wore off and their grief hit them full force.I wonder if they fought back tears as they spoke. I wonder if the words “we had hoped” caught in their throats. I wonder if their grief felt like the hope in their hearts was extinguished.

Even as we celebrate the Easter season and rejoice in the hope of the resurrection, I can imagine people a few decades from now saying, “we had hoped.”

“We had hoped the sea levels wouldn’t rise this much.”

“We had hoped we would find a solution for climate change.”

“We had hoped we would do enough to keep our kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids from suffering.” Or “we had hoped our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents would do enough to keep things from getting this bad.”

Hope isn’t always an easy thing to find or keep.

It can be hard to feel God’s presence in the midst of pollution, war, discrimination, everything that’s wrong with the world.

It’s possible to bury our heads in the sand as a coping mechanism. If we stay away from the news, if we keep from finding out what scientists are predicting, if we don’t learn the extent of the damage, maybe we can hope that things aren’t as bad as they seem, that they can be fixed if we just try harder.

But as we learn more, we can find ourselves saying, “we had hoped…”

And it can feel like God is nowhere to be found.

But Jesus’ two disciples, who had given up hope, discovered that Jesus had been with them all along.

It’s a strange story: the disciples not recognizing their beloved rabbi, him keeping up the ruse for hours, the sudden recognition, the even more sudden disappearance.

But despite this story’s surprising and supernatural elements, it’s grounded in the physical.

The disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread—physical food they had similarly shared with him only a few days before.

They marveled that they hadn’t recognized him, but realized their bodies knew all along: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

It took something physical to help them understand what God was up to, just like there’s a physical element in our sacraments, because God knows we understand better when there’s something of this world we can connect to.

We can recognize God in the breaking of bread, the pouring of wine, the splash of water.

We recognize God in the physical, because God made us physical beings. God formed our bodies out of the dust of the earth God created. God shows Godself to us through what is earthly and earthy.

We’re not just souls inhabiting inconvenient and messy bodies. We’re both physical and spiritual creatures. Our bodies can help us recognize God, because God shows Godself to us through what is earthly and earthy, like our bodies.

And that’s why this world we live in matters. We’re not just souls inhabiting a strange planet for a few decades before floating off into the clouds. The book of Revelation talks about a new heaven and a new earth. God loves this world and won’t abandon it. God loves you—all of you—the embodied and spiritual and everything about you.

Every time we touch water—sink, shower, garden hose, ocean—we can remember that God affirms our belonging to God’s family in baptism.

Every time we eat together—bread, wine, sushi, salads, or tortilla chips, dinner party or quick snack—we’re proclaiming our Savior’s death until he comes again. We’re recognizing God’s presence in and around us always—our communion with each other and all that lives.

We can recognize God in all that’s created.

A bright point in the news cycle lately has been the Artemis II mission, and I was moved by the impromptu response of the pilot, Victor Glover, to a request for an Easter message.

He said, “As we areso far from earth and looking back at, you know, the beauty of creation, I think that for me one of the really important personal perspectives that Ihave up here is I can really see earth as one thing.

And, you know, when I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us whowere created, you have this amazing place, this spaceship.You guys are talking to us because we're in a spaceship really far from Earth, butyou're on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos.

Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we're doing is special, but we're the same distance from you, and I'm trying to tell you—just trust me—youare special.In all of this emptiness—this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe—you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we getto exist together.

I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about, you know, all the cultures all around the world,whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are thesame thing and that we got to get through this together.”

What a great reminder that God created this beautiful planet and created us as part of it. What a privilege it is to live on this planet. Such a powerful message of unity and cooperation. After all, as Pastor Jaz reminded us last week: “Hope is a group project.” Say it with me: “Hope is a group project.”

This Easter season, let’s renew our hope in our risen Savior. Let’s do our best to recognize God in the world around us, in what is physical—bread, wine, water, the face of a stranger.

God is with us. Jesus is risen. The Holy Spirit breathes new life into our home in the cosmos.

Let your heart burn within you and hope again.

Hope is a Group Project

Pr. Jaz Bowen-Waring

2nd Sunday After Easter April 12, 2026

It’s a Sunday evening, and they were hiding behind locked doors. Their lives were turned upside down, and they feared for their safety. They were afraid because someone they loved and trusted was lynched and murdered… and they could be next. It’s a Sunday evening, and they were hiding behind locked doors— not knowing if they were going to be snatched up and never heard from again on their way to work, to get groceries, or walking home minding their own business. It’s a Sunday evening, and they were hiding behind locked doors because they never knew what their paranoid and violent emperor would do next. This scene could be anywhere: immigrants hiding from ICE in Santa Ana, Palestinians and Iranians hiding from soldiers and bombs, students hiding from a gunman in a classroom. But the scene was in 1st-century Jerusalem, after Jesus was executed. That particular Sunday evening, through locked doors, Jesus enters. Resurrection begins in locked rooms and tombs. Not by busting down the door like Rambo, but in gentle mystery. His first words to his disciples are not: Why are you hiding, cowards? Have faith! or Get it together! But: Peace be with you. Jesus’ response to the disciples’ fear shows us how God meets us. God does not coerce. God does not force transformation upon us. God offers presence. God works relationally. God meets fear with companionship and community. Even in fear: Hope is a group project. The disciples survived because they stayed together. Then there is another familiar scene—where Jesus shows his scars. The holes still in his hands and feet. The wound in his side. Marks of the violence he endured under intense interrogation, public humiliation, and a criminal’s execution. These are the marks of Christ’s solidarity with those who have endured the oppression of detention centers, assaults in school bathrooms, and innocent people sitting on death row. Jesus shows us that a divine body is not a perfect body, but a wounded body. A scarred body. A surviving body. Resurrection is not about pretending the trauma never happened. It is about refusing to let trauma define the future. God does not rewind history, because time is always pushing forward. God works with the real skin and bones of humanity, and gathers the broken pieces and creates new possibilities. Communities carry wounds: grief, injustice, betrayal, violence, burnout, and disappointment. And still—we are here in spite of it all. The wounds are not proof that God failed. They are proof that love survived. Healing is communal. Recovery is communal. Resurrection is communal. Hope is a group project. There are times when we question—or even doubt—hope. When we become cynical, or just so weary from fighting the good fight that we start to ask: Where is God? How much longer must we endure this? Why is there so much suffering in the world? Thomas speaks for us in this moment. Thomas is not weak in faith. On the contrary, Thomas is a person of action and embodied hope. He is not with the disciples hiding behind locked doors. He is out in the streets—probably getting groceries with Mary and the other women disciples. Thomas was grieving too, and perhaps even more weary from helping taking care of everyone. People like Thomas and Mary Magdalene are people who pray with their feet and look for practical expressions of hope. So Thomas was honest when he was told that Christ had risen. Thomas was not going to settle for a secondhand, shallow kind of hope he had not experienced for himself. And Jesus honors that. Jesus appears to Thomas and draws him closer to hope enfleshed. God does not demand blind belief or shallow optimism. God invites participation. We do not believe alone. We question together. We search together. Hope is a group project. From a Sunday evening hiding behind locked doors, to a public proclamation, Peter finds the courage to step into active hope. His fear of violence and social stigma is transformed into public witness—not because the circumstances suddenly became safe, but because resurrection changed what he believed was possible. And he was not speaking alone. He was supported by his community of fellow disciples. Resurrection turns survivors into witnesses. Witness today looks like: showing up for neighbors, protecting the vulnerable, telling the truth, building community, and organizing care. Hope becomes real when we act together. Hope is a group project. Speaking of group projects, on Friday we watched the Artemis II successfully complete their mission around the moon. NASA was able to resurrect the dream human space travel with the hopes of one day walking on the moon again. Through the efforts of thousands of people, and billions of dollars, four brave individuals were able to travel further and any human ever has. That wasn’t the only achievement! This was the first time a Canadian, a Person of Color, and a woman traveled to the moon. I don’t know about you, but this fills me with so much hope. Artemis II showed all of us that it is possible for thousands of people work together through complex problems and be successful. In a country where progress feels stagnant, and our hope for a better tomorrow seems dead in the water. Hope breaks through the atmosphere of our cynicism and opens us up to new possibilities. Hope is not something we wait for. Hope is something we build. Together. Because hope—is a group project.

Sermon on Matthew 28:1-10

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

We celebrate new life today, but the story of the first Easter begins with death.

Jesus was dead. There’s no Easter without the violence of Good Friday and the grief and helplessness of Holy Saturday.

Two of Jesus’ disciples, both named Mary, went in the first light of that Sunday morning to the tomb where Jesus had been laid.

And they weren’t alone there. The Gospel of Matthew spends a lot of time before and after our reading talking about the guards who had been posted at the tomb. According to this account, Pilate was concerned that Jesus’ followers would steal his body so they could claim he had risen from the dead.

As if Jesus’ death weren’t enough, the authorities used guards to make sure Jesus’ story wouldn’t be told as anything but failure, humiliation, and death.

It seemed like the Beloved Community had failed. It seemed like death and the status quo had won and that Jesus wouldn’t be remembered as anything but a failed radical phony rabbi. It seemed like it was all for nothing.

We talked throughout Lent about God’s love for this worldand our broken relationship with creation. We started learning about lament, talked about microplastics, and took a trip to the landfill to learn about what can be done with waste.

When learning about climate change, it can feel like death has already won. It can feel like our attempts at recycling or replacing a lawn withdrought-resistant plantsarea total waste. It can seem like nothing can overcome the status quo of overconsumption and pollution. It can seem like death has won.

But Easter is about remembering that death hasn’t won.

As those two grieving Marysmade their pilgrimage to the tomb, risking their safety by being alone with the guards in a secluded place, suddenly there was an earthquake that caused the great rock in front of the tomb to move. The earth moved the stone when Jesus’ followers weren’t able to. The earth cooperated in releasing Jesus from the tomb.

And on top of the stone was a supernatural being so bright their eyes hurt.There’s a reason divine messengers almost always have to tell people not to be afraid—they’re terrifying! It says the guards posted at the tomb “shook and became like dead men” upon seeing the angel. Professional soldiers fainted at the sight.

The agents of the status quo weren’t a match for God’s power of life. The giant stone they had sealed up Jesus’ body with wasn’t able to prevent life from bursting forth.

Though the Gospel of Matthew says the religious leaders bribed the guards to say that Jesus followers had removed the body, the authorities weren’t able to stamp out the good news of the Beloved Community. If they had, we wouldn’t be here together today. The Way of Jesus would have died out then.

Jesus rose from the dead, defeating death and bringing Good News of new life to the world.

And our God of new life is still at work.

We’re no match for the forces of death and destruction on our own, but God’s working with us every step of the way, guiding us, inspiring us, strengthening bonds between us as we do what we can to bring life to the world around us.

As I mentioned, some of us toured our local landfill week before last. We learned that the Olinda Alpha landfill in Brea receives 3,000 tons of waste a day. The hills we drove around were made up of compacted waste covered in dirt and native plants. They have devices for collecting the methane released by the buried waste and converting it into electricity. To a certain extent, they sort the waste, diverting some metal and wood for recycling or composting.

We drove to the highest point of one of the hills, where the waste was exposed, and massive excavators and other heavy machinery drove in and around it. It was sobering to see the waste instead of just imagining the masses of it under our feet.

Our tour guides informed us that seagulls create problems by swooping in and grabbing bits of toxic waste and migrating, dropping the waste all over—the beach, people’s pools and homes.

In the past, they would fire guns to scare away the seagulls, but what goes up must come down, so that wasn’t a safe solution.

Now, they bring in hawks and falcons to scare them away. We got to meet with two falconers, who had brought Harris hawks with them. These powerful and beautiful birds contrasted so sharply with the masses of garbage.

One of the falconers had a cross around his neck, so we asked him and his partner, who’s also a Christian, how their faith informs what they do. I wish I could tell you her exact words, but the partner said something to the effect of: it’s hard to be around the waste all the time, but working alongside creation in those birds helps her feel like she’s a partner in doing what she can to protect people and provide a safe and natural solution to the seagull problem. She sees God in everything around us.

Her words were a powerful reminder that there are things we can do to work alongside God even when it seems like death has won.

I’ve often heard Christians described as Easter people, and that’s beautiful. But I think part of a life of faith is holding the truths of Good Friday and Easter together.

Easter makes no sense without Good Friday. There’s no resurrection without death.

There is death. There is also new life.There is waste, and there is also compost that nourishes.There is violence, and there is also compassion that heals.God is present in all of it, weeping, rejoicing, comforting, guiding, inspiring.

It’s such an abrupt shift emotionally from Good Friday to Easter. It’s dramatic, but it can also feel dissatisfying to celebrate Christ defeating death when we still feel death’s effects so profoundly.

There’s still so much wrong with the world—violence, hate, and destruction. And we celebrate that God works in and despite that to create new life and hope and love.

It would be irresponsible of us to talk throughout Lent about our broken relationship with creation, and then turn around and pretend like everything’s fine because it’s Easter.

Easter doesn’t mean we stop talking about the hard things, the broken things, the things that make us want to crawl back into bed and never leave.

Easter means we acknowledge the hard things about life, do what we can that’s life-giving for our neighbors and the world, and trust in our Savior who faced the world’s death-dealing forces and whose love burst forth into new life.

Our Creator is everywhere we look.

Jesus brings new life.

The Holy Spirit brings healing to our relationship with the earth and hope for a future where all life flourishes in the Beloved Community.

This is why, even as we tell the truth about what is hard, we can still proclaim, “Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!”