[Sermon] The Disruption of Resurrection

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo + April 20, 2025

Easter Sunday

"Full to the Brim: Take Off Your Shoes"

On Easter Sunday, Pastor Hector proclaims resurrection as a divine disruption—a holy shaking of our assumptions, plans, and even our faith. The women came to the tomb ready to mourn. Instead, they encountered mystery and movement, and nothing could stay the same. Resurrection life isn’t tidy or predictable—it’s expansive, inclusive, and future-oriented. It asks us to let go of control and step into the unknown, trusting that God is already ahead of us. To live resurrection is to be open, again and again, to surprise. To stop. To look. And to be changed.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatically generated captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Grace to you and peace from Abba, Father, Mother, Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ—our Savior, our Lord, the one who is at loose, being shared with the entire world—the resurrected Christ. And we said, amen.

It is a joy to be able to be with you today on this special day in the life and in the ministry of the Church—not only of this congregation, Trinity Lutheran Church and Schools, but the Church of all times and in all places, the universal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I was, uh, just communicating earlier with our friends—uh, Pastor Bev sending me Easter greetings from Vienna. I have some pastors in our Russian companion synod sending me greetings from Germany, and from Russia, and from Taiwan family. And I said, indeed, the Lord is risen, and he is all over the world—and for that, we thank God.

And here we are, my dear siblings in Christ. We—I know that we have some of our siblings gathering in our chapel, and, uh, it is, uh, good. That means that we are full here, but I also feel for you having to be in the chapel, in a separated room. But I hope, as I said earlier, that we remember that, besides the feelings that we have of not being in the same room, that these walls are, again, just a structural part of this building. These walls will never stop—as David said—the Spirit moving through and in each one of us. And I know that we are united, even though we are in two different rooms.

For the past few days, we have been reflecting on this story of the resurrection. Yesterday, we were talking about the importance of the stories, and why the angels are reminding the disciples and Mary that they need to remember what Jesus told them. And these stories are stories that really stir our hearts and our minds and our imaginations—to help us to go beyond the story that is written in a book, that sometimes we memorize, that sometimes we get so familiar with—but to let the story make us become part of that story with our lives.

Jesus invited Mary to embrace the transcendence of the event of the resurrection—what she experienced, what she witnesses, what she sees—and to remember that the relationship that Jesus is going to have with Mary, with the disciples, and with us is beyond the desire of holding on to Jesus and keeping him with us and for us, but to live a life that is not only about resurrection, but about resurrection.

You lead the story. So you hear the stories. Jesus finds them—Mary and the disciples who are puzzled, and Peter, who doesn’t know how—what to make up of these—and the power of the resurrection propels the disciples, propels the disciple women or the disciple men, to go and to share with others.

So I invite you to think of the resurrection like that. Yesterday, I shared words with the congregation—words from, uh, Archbishop Romero, who talks about transcendence and the transcendence of the resurrected Christ. Transcendence, he says, is breaking through the encirclements that sometimes contain us and make us believe that just by knowing that there was a resurrection sometime in the past—it happened with some man called Jesus, and there were some disciples that went and were disappointed—and good, now we can just go on with our lives. No. That event is a power that continues to propel us.

The women went to the tomb—and what do you think they were expecting when they went to the tomb?

My—body?

Perhaps we would do the same thing. But they—they were expecting to find the body of the Lord Jesus. And they spent money to buy expensive perfumes to anoint the body. They were expecting to find the big stone that would be covering—or covering—the tomb. They were expecting to find a body in the tomb. And they were hoping to cry by the body—a time to say goodbye to a good friend, to someone who they loved, to someone who they knew loved them.

In some ways, we are like them. We make preparations, and we make planning for the future that we do not know. We make assumptions of what will happen. Doesn’t it happen to you? Happens to me.

They assumed it would be just a regular burial of a good friend, as it was supposed to be. So they prepared accordingly.

But let's make a pause, and let's think about—about ourselves. How many things of what you planned, or that we have planned today, have gone exactly the way that we planned them this morning?

60%? Maybe 25% for others?

How do we deal with it—whether it goes against our core values, our lifelong practices, or simply the mood at the moment when we make plans—how do we deal when things do not go the way that we want?

(there's a silence now)

Frustration?

Say again?

Frustration.

Frustration and disappointment.

Disappointed?

Disappointed. Yep.

So that's probably how Peter felt, because Peter—the scripture says that Peter left puzzled and shaking his head. Right?

This event makes me think of what resurrection was. Is it more than an event that causes debate and skepticism—skepticism among some people? It's just more than an event that we study, dissect, try to understand, try to make human logic—uh, assumptions of it. It is an event that did disrupt, does disrupt, and will disrupt the plans and schemes of individuals and powers of this world, as it did at that time.

I know that this story, as I said earlier, has become familiar. It's just a holiday on our calendar. It's a celebration. Unfortunately, it has become a reason for profit. Yeah. Because I think that Easter celebration starts in the stores by January or something like that. It has become just an event, to the point that it is one of the check marks for many—done with Easter.

But I believe that the story that we read today tells us that we cannot stop at this familiarity with this story. Resurrection is the force that leads us to open ourselves up to the unexpected—as we arrive at the tomb, and we realize that we have to lay our expensive spices, or perfumes, down. Our plans, our expectations, our assumptions—and that we need to let—let go of what we know, and we need to move to take a step forward to whatever is next.

We are here to celebrate resurrection, and we thank God for this opportunity. But the question for us is then:

What then? What then, when we hear this story again?

Then what? When we know that this—the power of this resurrection—is going to disrupt us every day in our lives?

What—when we remember that this power of the resurrection is inviting us to see beyond our human reason or understanding?

Resurrection is more than being raised from the—from a physical dead. Resurrection creates and expands our current experience of life and calls us from this idea of eternal life, and makes us think more about life eternal. And there is a difference, for me, in this.

Eternal life, sometimes, is the belief that we will just continue living the life that we have in the world, that we are hoping to get out of this place and just leave, and just continue to be who we are.

But life eternal is different. Life eternal calls us to put down our assumptions, and everything that we assume that we know, and to let—to—and to be embraced by the life that God offers to us in a new relationship: with creation, with all people, with God, and with Christ.

It is about a relationship, not just the longevity of life.

See the difference?

So that’s why, for me, it’s so important for us to ask—as we celebrate resurrection—then what?

Resurrection people are channels of the expansive life—people who are able to see beyond themselves and see how the Lord lives and is present in others, instead of shaking our heads, walking away from others.

An expansive life—of life eternal—is embracing breath, and openness, and diversity. This expansive life that the resurrection invites us to live is a life of inclusivity, holistic thinking, curiosity, and future-oriented vision.

They wanted to see the Jesus that they knew.They met the Jesus that he wanted them to meet.

The power of the resurrection, as the life, is not limited—diminished—by endings, but it's amplified through the transformative rebirth, renewal, and transcendence.

As Oscar Romero said: liberation from constraints, opening pathways to greater freedom, purpose, and interconnectedness with one another, my siblings in Christ.

I was thinking—how do I explain all this simply?

So I brought my bag.

Sometimes our lives feel exactly like this. Somewhere in our lives that are empty, there is a message that we don't see—a message that only resurrection, the breath of life of God, can help us see.

So, I see something, and it’s until I am open to the breath of God...

(that sometimes doesn’t work... All right, I had too much bread of God, I guess...)

What we were supposed to see is that it says: He is risen indeed, once we expanded.

And you see what happens when things don't go the way that you plan?

Resurrection people—

It’s a blessing to be with you. Let’s live beyond fear of failure or difference, of self-imposed or imposed differences. Let’s love beyond boundaries created by others or by tribalisms among us. And let’s hope beyond despair.

So, as you know, I am not a “Happy Easter” person—because happy is a feeling that goes.And if I’m going to explain this, I will need to preach another sermon.

So I don’t think that you need another sermon today.I will leave that for another time.

I am not a “Happy Easter” person.But I am a person with you that believes that today—I will say:

May the resurrection disrupt anything that prevents us—you and me—from seeing the lifegiving presence of Jesus.May the resurrection help us see beyond fear, beyond boundaries, and beyond despair.And may the resurrection blessing be with you all, my siblings in Christ, now and every day in your lives.

He is risen.

Amen.