Resurrected Christ: God’s Nonviolent Uprising

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, Minister of Prophetic Formation at Juniper Formation, given at Park Hill Congregational UCC in Denver, CO.

Beloved community,

As the sun painted the sky with rainbow watercolors, but before certainty returned, before the world made sense again, there were women walking toward the tomb.

They were not expecting resurrection. 

They were in shock and numb at the cruelty, the humiliation, the brutality of the crucifixion—even though they knew it had always been a tool of the empire. 

Their hearts were heavy and tight in their chests; the weight of grief pulled on every part of their body as they moved in what felt like a surreal other world.

The future they had been cocreating together evaporated. They were uncertain about the future, unsure of what was to come.

Does this feel familiar? 

It does for me too.

The women were carrying spices to anoint Jesus’ body—to minimize the smell of death. It was the one next thing they knew to do. They couldn’t see much beyond the moment, but in the moment, they took that one next step.

As they walked together towards the tomb, they were carrying the heavy knowledge of what empire does to bodies that dare to love too boldly, speak too truthfully, organize too freely.

Crucifixion was never random. It was a message from empire: this is what happens when you challenge the way things are, because in doing so, you challenge who we are. 

And this message is the first thing Easter comes to interrupt.

Because how often have we heard it? Maybe even said it ourselves:
“That’s just the way things are.”

That’s just the way power works.
That’s just the way politics is.
That’s just the way the economy functions.
That’s just the way violence happens.
That’s just the way Church is.
That’s just the way the world works.
It is what it is.

But then—Matthew tells us—the earth itself begins to shake. 

Remember last week, Palm Sunday, when the Pharisees admonish Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” “Teacher, make this less disruptive to the way things are.”

And Jesus answers with thunder: “If they keep silent, the stones will cry out.”

The stones beneath your feet.
The stones that have watched empires rise and fall.
The stones that have absorbed blood, tears, prayers, and protest.

Even the earth cannot hold this pain and this truth in forever. 

The earth itself begins to shake. The stone rolls away. Guards are undone by fear. And an angel sits on the very stone that was supposed to seal Jesus’ death forever.

This is not a quiet moment. This is disruption. This is upheaval. This is, in every sense, a nonviolent uprising.

God reimagines the permanence of death itself.

And perhaps one of the greatest lessons of Jesus’ resurrection is this:
how deeply false the phrase “that’s just the way things are” really is.

Because if death is not final…then what is?

If the tomb cannot hold…then what system, what empire, what violence can truly claim permanence?

Maybe the whole point of Jesus’ resurrection—God’s uprising—is to reveal that oppression, empire, and violence are not inevitable. They are not eternal. They are not “just the way things are.”

They are what we have come to accept.

But God does not accept them.

And in raising Jesus, God exposes their limits.

If death itself isn’t permanent, then nothing built on death is permanent.

If the grave can be undone, then so can every system that depends on graves:

• Extractive capitalism that depends on low wages, child labor, and slavery,

• The military and prison industrial complexes,

• Immigrant concentration camps,

• The US-Israeli genocide of Palestine,

• School shootings,

• The list of systems that depend on graves goes on.

If nothing built on death is permanent, then we can cocreate something different. 

We do not have to live like this.

But notice how quickly the forces of power respond.

While the women are still running with awe and great joy at the sight of a resurrected Jesus, the machinery of control is already turning.

The guards report what happened. The chief priests gather. The elders strategize. Money is exchanged. A story is crafted:

“Say the disciples stole the body.”

Because something is at stake.

If resurrection is real, then their authority is fragile.
If resurrection is real, then their collaboration with empire is exposed.
If resurrection is real, then fear is no longer an effective tool of control.

So they do what empires have always done—they manage the narrative.

They don’t seek truth. They make it up.
They don’t confess fear or wrongdoing. They conceal it.
They don’t share power. They protect it.

And Matthew tells us, “This is the story that circulates among Judeans to this very day.”

To this very day.

We recognize this story, don’t we?

We know what it is to live in a world where truth is negotiated behind closed doors. Where we are asked not to believe the evidence of our own eyes. Where violence is reframed as necessity. Where stories are crafted not just to keep systems of oppression intact, but to expand those systems.

We, you and I, live within an empire that tells stories to justify domination—stories about freedom that are founded on supremacy and exclusion, stories about peace that require violence and genocide, stories about prosperity built on exploitation and slavery.

We see these stories in policing.
We see these stories in immigration systems.
We see these stories in foreign policy.
We see these stories in politicking that says we can’t afford daycare for our children, Medicaid for low-income people, nor Medicare for those over 65 and those with disabilities, because we need that tax revenue for wars, political abductions, CECOT, genocides.

We see it in the ways suffering is explained away as unavoidable.

“That’s just the way things are.”

But Easter says: no, this is not the way things have to be.

Resurrection is not God glorifying suffering.

For too long, the wider Church has taught people to accept harm, to endure abuse, to romanticize sacrifice, as if that is what God desires.

As if a Creator God would ever want their beloved children to suffer.

The cross was not holy because it was painful.
It was violent because empire made it so.

God does not require your suffering to prove your faithfulness.

Yes, there are those who risk greatly for liberation. Yes, there are those who pay a high cost—martyrs of the movement, and others whose bodies are broken by the weight of the struggle. There are many unnamed people whose labor, stress, and sacrifice shaped and continue to shape movements for justice.

But God is not calling us to die, to sacrifice our lives. 

That call is coming from inside the house. The call to sacrifice our lives, the call for more death, the call for more violence and war is coming from inside the white house, the empire, those whose wealth and power are unsatiated, those who disregard the sacredness of life, creation, God. Those who make themselves gods of destruction.

In contrast, God calls us to refuse the lie that death-dealing systems are inevitable.

We are being called to live as if resurrection is truth.

To take meaningful risks.
To tell the truth when it’s inconvenient.
To resist when it would be easier to comply.
To build communities that reflect the world we long for.
To care for one another in ways that defy isolation.
Yes, to make sacrifices too.

Not because it is easy—but because it is possible.

And still, the Easter story ends with something tender and honest.

When the eleven disciples saw the risen Christ, some doubt.

And Jesus stays.

Because resurrection is not about perfect belief or doctrine—it is about participation in a different reality.

“Go,” Jesus says.
Live this. Teach this. Practice this.

And remember: I am with you.

With you in the uncertainty.
With you in the courage it takes to resist.
With you in the long work of transformation.
With you when the world insists nothing can change.

So this Easter, we do not settle for a soft hope.

We claim a defiant hope.

A hope rooted in this truth:
death is not permanent—so nothing built on death is permanent.

Not empire.
Not oppression.
Not violence.
Not despair.

The world as it is, is not permanent. 

We can cocreate something more just.
More whole.
More alive.

The world as it must be, is ours to imagine. Ours to cocreate. Ours to risk hoping in.

Do not leave here saying, “What a beautiful story.”
Do not leave here comforted into complacency.
Do not leave here believing that the world as it is… is the world as it must be.

Because the resurrection of Jesus is not a warm fuzzy decoration of our faith—it is a disruption of every lie we have been told about what is possible.

Empire says: this is inevitable.
God says: watch me…watch me undo it.

Empire says: this is permanent.
God says: even death is reversible.

Empire says: stay in your place.
God says: the stone is already rolling away.

So if death itself is not final—
then don’t you dare call injustice final.
Don’t you dare call oppression permanent.
Don’t you dare call violence inevitable.

That is not faith—that is surrender.

Resurrection is God’s uprising against every system that teaches us to accept less than life. Less than love. Less than each other.

And God’s resurrection is also a Call.

A Call to live like we believe resurrection is true.
A Call to organize like we believe resurrection is true.
A Call to tell the truth, to protect the vulnerable, to disrupt what harms, to build what heals—like we actually believe that another world is not only possible, but is already breaking in.

Because it is.

Right here.
In this room.
At this communion table.
In every act of courage.
In every refusal to go along with what kills.
In every community that chooses love over fear.

The uprising has already begun.

And you—you are not just witnesses to it.

You are participants in it.

So go—
not politely, not quietly, not fearfully—

but go boldly, truthfully, and go together—

and live as if “that’s just the way things are” is a lie.

Because the truth, beloved, is the resurrection is God’s uprising, and Christ is risen today, and in all our tomorrows.

Amen.