Here I Stand: The Truth that Raises Us

There’s a story that many of us learned as children about a young George Washington. You probably know it. He cuts down his father’s cherry tree, and when confronted, he says, “I cannot tell a lie.” Now, historians will tell you that story probably never happened. But it has endured for generations because it points to something we recognize as deeply true. There is something in us that longs to live in truth, even when it’s costly.

And that same spirit echoes centuries later in the words of Martin Luther, standing before the powers of church and empire, saying, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

Easter, I believe, is about that kind of truth. The kind you don’t just argue for—but the kind you stand in. The kind that changes your life.

In the gospel of John, Jesus tells Pilate, “I came to testify to the truth.” So what is that truth? I want to name four essential truths this morning—truths that I believe are at the very heart of Easter.

First, we are not, and have never been, separate from God. What the Bible calls sin is not some legal stain that distances us from a faraway deity. It is the illusion that we are separate—from God, from one another, even from our own deepest selves. But the truth is, as Paul says, “In God we live and move and have our being.” We have always been held within a sacred, interconnected reality.

Second, we are already, and have always been, forgiven. Jesus doesn’t go around saying, “I forgive you.” He says, “You are forgiven.” Meaning he’s announcing something that has always been true. As Richard Rohr puts it, “God’s permanent stance toward reality is forgiveness.” God is not deciding, from time to time, whether to extend mercy. God is mercy. What keeps us from experiencing that is not God’s reluctance—but our inability to trust that it’s true.

Third, Jesus is the light of the world—but he also says, “You are the light of the world.” That means the light we see in him is not foreign to us. It is our own deepest identity. But we bury it under fear, ego, illusion, and all the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and who we are not.

And fourth, the way of Jesus is the way that reveals all of this. His life, his teachings, his refusal to give in to fear or ego—even in the garden, even on the cross—unleashed a Love power greater than death itself. And that power bursts forth from a dark tomb, not just to reveal who he is, but to reveal who we are.

Now I want to be honest with you. I don’t understand the resurrection. I don’t know what physically or literally happened in that tomb. But I believe in it.

Because I have experienced it. I have experienced new life rising from the ashes of death. And I’m not alone in that.

As theologian Bruce Epperly writes, “A literal Easter story is far too supernatural and surprisingly too wooden… Conversely, the minimalist approach… is far too one-dimensional. No one risks their lives… over a fabricated story and a localized rotting corpse.” And then he says this: “Still, amid all the mystery and incomprehensibility, we need a resurrection, a testimony to life in the face of death!”

Something happened. Something so real, so powerful, that people who had been hiding in fear became bold witnesses. Something that turned grief into courage, despair into hope, silence into proclamation. And this is where it becomes real for me, and maybe for you too:

I don’t know what happened in that tomb—but I know what happens to people who encounter the living Christ. Fear gives way to courage, shame gives way to love, and life begins again.

That’s the resurrection I trust.

And here’s the key: Peter comes to understand that this isn’t just for a select few. He says, “God shows no partiality… in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable.” This is a universal message.

Epperly puts it this way: “All humankind shares in the power of the Risen Christ; its impact transcends all boundaries… Opening to the risen Christ awakens us to new possibilities; to new life; and to transformation where death was all around.”

And that matters right now. In a world full of division and fear and violence, we need a resurrection that is big enough for all of us. But here’s where it gets even more beautiful.

The first witnesses to this resurrection are women. Not the official leaders. Not the powerful elite. Not the disciples hiding behind locked doors. The women. And not only do they encounter the risen Christ—they are commissioned to go and tell the others. Epperly reminds us: “They receive the first ‘great commission.’ They believe the impossible… as a result of their own experience.”

In other words, resurrection doesn’t come through institutional authority. It comes through encounter. Through experience. Through people whose lives have been changed.

Now let me say something that may challenge how some of us were taught.

We often hear that Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sin. But as Rev. Chuck Queen writes, “God has no problem forgiving sin freely and unconditionally; forgiveness does not need to be purchased… The idea of actually being separated from God is nothing more than an illusion.”

Jesus didn’t die to change God’s mind about us. Jesus came to change our minds about God. He died because he challenged the systems of power, the collective ego of his time. And his resurrection reveals that love is stronger than all of it. Stronger than fear. Stronger than violence. Stronger than death.

And that same pattern—life, death, rebirth—is not just something that happened once, 2,000 years ago. It is the deepest, most trustworthy pattern of our lives.

Every time we let go of fear or release our need to control. Every time we choose love over ego… Something dies. And something new is born. That’s resurrection.

And so here we are, on Easter morning. And the question is not, “Do you understand it?” The question is: Have you experienced it?

Have you ever felt forgiveness that you didn’t think you deserved? Have you ever found new life in a place that felt dead? Have you ever been seen, fully and completely, with all of your flaws, and loved anyway?

That’s resurrection.

And once you know it, once you’ve tasted it, you can say, like that young boy standing in front of a downed cherry tree, “I cannot tell a lie.” You can say, like Martin Luther, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

Because Easter is not just something we believe in. It’s something we stand in.

It’s the truth that we are not separate, but held. The truth that we are not condemned, but forgiven. The truth that we are not darkness, but light. The truth that love is stronger than death.

And that truth—once it takes hold of you—will raise you.

Amen.