Pastoral Letter: We Are Easter People

Dear SUM Family, 

When I call us “Easter People,” how does that sound to you?

Can you say it with a quiet yes—yes, Pastor, we are Easter people?
Or do you pause for a moment and wonder what that really means?

Maybe both are true.

We have just walked through Lent together. We began on Ash Wednesday. We moved through the long road of prayer, repentance, and reflection. We entered Holy Week. We stood, as best we could, near the cross. And on Easter morning, we heard again the good news that has carried the church through every age: Christ is risen.

And then the week began.

I had hoped to move through this week a little more slowly. After the full pace and weight of the season, I wanted to set a few things down, catch my breath, and return to the ordinary rhythm of life and ministry.

That was my plan.

But this week did not stay within my plan.

On Friday and Saturday, we gathered with two families in our SUM community to commend their loved ones into God’s care. Both families wanted to hold the funeral services after Holy Week and Easter, holding close the resurrection of Christ as they said goodbye.

So we gathered.
We prayed.
We remembered.
We wept.
And we entrusted those we love to the mercy of God.

And there, in those sacred and tender hours, Easter sounded different to me again.

Not smaller.
Not weaker.
But deeper.

We often think of Easter with lilies, music, bright sanctuaries, and joyful voices. And that is true. Easter does come with joy. It comes with beauty. It comes with the glad surprise of life where we expected only sorrow.

But this week reminded me again that Easter also meets us in funeral homes, in quiet tears, in tired hearts, and in the painful work of letting go. Resurrection is not only something we proclaim when the church is full and the hymns are strong. It is also what we hold when words come slowly, and grief is close.

That is why the church has never learned to speak of resurrection without also remembering the cross.

Not because Christians are meant to love suffering.
Not because grief itself is somehow holy.
But because the living God does not avoid the places we fear most. In Christ, God has entered even sorrow, even death, and has refused to leave us there.

This is what I found myself remembering again this week: resurrection does not erase the cross. It tells us that the cross is not the end.

That is why “Easter People” means more to me now than it did even a week ago.

Easter people are not people who are always cheerful.
They are not people whose faith is neat and settled.
They are not people who no longer know sorrow.

They are people who keep turning toward the living Christ. Sometimes with strength. Sometimes with very little strength at all. They are people who do not deny the pain of this life, and yet do not hand death the final word. They are people who keep walking, trusting that the risen Christ is already ahead of them.

I believe that is who we are called to be—together.

Easter cannot remain only a Sunday proclamation. It has to find its way into Monday, Tuesday, and all the ordinary days that follow. It has to meet us in the life we return to. It has to steady us when we are tired. It has to help us love again, pray again, and begin again.

Resurrection is not a push to become busier.
It is God’s way of restoring the way we walk.

And because of that, resurrection does not speak only to our private faith. It also speaks to our life together.

In our SUM community, I find myself wondering what this Easter season may be asking of us.

What parts of our common life are being called into new life?
What ministries may need to begin?
What ministries should continue, but with clearer purpose and renewed faithfulness?
And what ministries may need us to slow down, listen again, and ask whether we are still walking in step with the heart of Christ?

These are not just organizational questions. They are resurrection questions.

They ask whether we are ready not only to celebrate new life, but to receive it. They ask whether we are willing not only to admire the risen Christ, but to follow where Christ leads. By the grace of God and the breath of the Spirit, I pray that we will.

So we keep walking.

Not because everything is clear,
and not because the road has suddenly become easy.

Some days, we carry more than we can name.
Some days, we are simply trying to take the next step.

And still, we walk.

Because Christ is alive.
Because grace meets us again—often quietly, sometimes when we least expect it.
Because even in the moments that feel uncertain, we are not alone.

Dear friends, we are Easter people.

Not because life has become simple,
but because Christ is risen.

May the risen Christ meet you in the life you are returning to this week—
in your home, in your work, in your weariness, in your grief,
and in those quiet places where something like hope is beginning again.

And may God, in mercy, keep us walking together.

In the peace of the risen Christ,

Pastor DH