First United Methodist Church
April 20th, 2025
Rev. Lauren Hall
Easter Sermon
Did you ever notice that the rhythm of Holy Week is kind of like building a campfire? You show up at the campsite, get everything set up, gather your wood, and then you build the fire. You start with a small pile of tinder, get it to start burning, add some larger pieces of wood, and finally you have this nice, controlled flame that everyone sits around. The fire is the center of attention and provides the energy for everything that happens after it gets going – heat, light, food, conversations.
Every once in awhile you have to add another log to keep the fire going, and sometimes, if you blow gently on the existing flame, you can get the fire to burn brighter and hotter or even reignite an ember if the flame has gone out completely. Eventually, all the activities calm down as people sit around the campfire, quietly just staring into it, until finally the time comes for the night to end. If you are responsible, you will put the fire completely out – cold to the touch – and the whole area, which seemed so warm and cozy and full of energy earlier, becomes cold and dark and empty as everyone retreats to their tents or sleeping bags. The next morning, the first person who wakes up gathers more firewood and starts the process all over again.
Holy Week reminds me a little of this cycle. On Palm Sunday, we get the fire going as we celebrate with high energy songs, liturgy and scriptures, and even as we go home, we are thinking about Easter and our families or getting the same amount of work completed in the shortened work week. By Maundy Thursday our enthusiasm kind of settles into a quiet lull, and then on Good Friday, it is snuffed out completely until Easter morning, when Jesus breaths new hope and life into us as we celebrate the resurrection.
This past week, I’ve thought a lot about our Easter story. I’ve thought a lot about our anchor image for Lent – the ladder garden – and it keeps taking me back to my childhood when we spent a year living in England. The English call their backyards, “gardens.” And so when we read today’s Gospel and Mary encounters Jesus in the garden, the image that comes to my mind is my backyard, the place where I am safe, the place where I am comfortable, and the place where I can just “be” and open up to God. The Garden is where I can find hope.
As a child, I often built campfires in the firepit in the “garden.” I enjoyed gently blowing into the fire…seeing the flames get bigger and brighter, igniting the logs that were placed on the red embers. As Mary encounters Jesus in the garden, he gently breathes hope back into her.
At first, she mistakes him as a gardener. Why this image? What is it about a gardener that brings us a message of hope?
Maybe it’s because gardeners toil, trowel, pluck and prune all in the hope of cultivating a plant that bears fruit.
Maybe it’s because his Dad was the first gardener who tended the Garden of Eden.
Or maybe it’s because he looks like he is ready to cultivate new life, to pull all of us toward resurrection.
Or maybe this gardener looks like he knows something about hope – hope that Mary desperately needs.
A gardener knows the kind of hope it takes to sow a seed in the ground, cover it with fertilizer, and leave it be for months, trusting that with the right amount of water, air and time something new will be born out of a single seed.
When I think of my backyard as a garden, I trust that nature’s lifecycle will regenerate life as God intended it to be, and I have hope in both the present and the future.
Gardens and hope share a beautiful similarity—they're both acts of belief in the future. When you plant a seed, you're trusting it will grow into something vibrant and full of life. Even though you can't see the results immediately, you nurture the soil, water the plants, and tend to them with patience, knowing that growth takes time.
Hope works the same way. It's about believing in possibilities, even when outcomes aren't certain. It requires care, resilience, and sometimes the courage to trust that brighter days are ahead. Just as a garden can bloom into something breathtaking, hope can transform our lives in ways we might not expect.
During the season of Lent, and this last week in Holy Week, we focused on tending the life that is right in front of us, rather than constantly climbing ladders of what this world defines as success. We have been embracing “good enough” lives and “good enough” selves that are worthy of love, no matter what. We have been acknowledging that we all have limitations, and yet Christ calls us into God’s Kingdom with both compassion and love. Just as a gardener prepares the soil, plants seeds, and removes weeds, God is seen as preparing our hearts, planting virtues, and removing obstacles that hinder our spiritual growth.
And now we encounter Easter. It is a day we proclaim that while death is a part of life–even little “deaths” along the way of dreams, of love, of the way we thought life would go–even though this is a part of life, we are part of a faith that invites us to consider that the Good Gardener is always tending us, abiding with us, no matter what we face. Let us pray…
God of new life, as we emerge from the tomb of despair, rise up in us with new hope. When we are buried in the tomb of our sin, rise up in us with mercy and grace. Help us to notice the beauty of this place is today. The flowers that grace our worship area shout the good news of new life. The colors and the butterflies dance with joy at the news of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we also rise in hope and celebration at this good news.
Our journey through Lent has been long, and it does not end here, but rather we are given new “marching orders” to go forth in confidence for God, to witness to the good news of the resurrection and the power of God’s love in Jesus Christ. We are called to be bearers of the light and hope to areas in which darkness still stands. Keep us open to the needs and hearts of other people. Help us not to be so quick to condemn as we are to love. Help us to reach out in kindness and compassion whenever and wherever we can for healing and hope. Help us to remember those on our prayer list as we name them before you today. Together we pray for…[names – victims Florida State shooting]. Remind us again of the many ways in which you have and continue to bless our lives. For we ask these things in the name of the Resurrected Christ. AMEN
