Sermon for Sunday, April 12, 2026 || Easter 2A || John 20:19-31
As I read today’s Gospel reading for the umpteenth time in my life, something new struck me. Ten of the disciples are together, locked in the house for fear of the authorities. They are together in their grief and confusion over the fact that Jesus’ mission ended with such violence and immediacy a few days before. What are they going to do now? How could it all have gone so wrong? The ten of them sit together, I imagine, staying silent for long periods of time interrupted by little bursts of conversation: trying to make sense, trying to comfort.
Then there’s Thomas. He’s the only one not with the others. He’s off somewhere by himself. I imagine Thomas walking the streets of Jerusalem, alone with his thoughts and his tears. He was the one ready to die with Jesus when they went to see Lazarus and his sisters. And then he ran off like everyone else. Unlike the others, Thomas is alone in his grief and confusion. Maybe also the jagged knife feeling of betrayal. He knows he cannot face the others right now. He needs to be alone.
These two responses to the loss of a loved one – the need to be together and the need to be alone – got me thinking about our responses to death and dying. These responses are as many and varied as there are mourners in attendance. In my eighteen years walking with people through death and grief, I’ve borne witness to myriad reactions to death. As a priest, it is my honor, privilege, and duty to accompany people on this sorrowful journey. And it is sorrowful, full of sorrow, even as we believe in the ultimate power and promise of the resurrection of Jesus, which we proclaim extra joyfully during the season of Easter.
The Book of Common Prayer includes a short note at the end of the Burial liturgy to clarify this point about joy and grief, saying:
The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too, shall be raised.
The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.
(BCP 507)
This is what the prayerbook says about our multiplicity of feelings around loss.
Grief and joy. And confusion and anger and numbness and shock and relief and guilt. Fleeting moments of peace. Then more guilt. More grief. And the empty expanse of a future that is different than the one you expected. The days go on, desolate, with small oases of joy and the care of others and the slow, sea-glass smoothing of the jagged pieces of broken hearts. This is our journey through the valley of the shadow of death, even as our persisting love for the one who has died tells us they are alive in a new way in the power of the resurrection. It’s a long road that twists back on itself. But the good news is that we do not walk this road alone, for nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.
In my years walking this road with people, they have taught me a few things about death and dying. Recently, I was on a panel at StoneRidge about the end of life, and I wrote up a list of ten things I’ve learned about walking with people through death and grief. I’d like to spend the rest of this sermon sharing these ten things with you.
# 1: Death is scary because it is the great unknown, the firmest of all existential limits. While many of us hold religious beliefs about what “comes next,” no one truly knows, and this can cause anxiety.
# 2: It is not uncommon for the dying person to act as a comforter to their loved ones. This can add an extra burden to the person who is already burdened by pain, illness, and the heavy psychic load of approaching death.
# 3: The impending death of a loved one can bring up emotions of every variety, often many at once that are difficult to sort through. Allowing yourself to feel emotions without judgment will help you remain fully present.
# 4: Death is always sudden, even when it is expected. Some dying people need permission from their loved ones to let go. Many will wait until their loved ones have left the room to release their last breaths. This is their final kindness.
# 5: Most people have difficulty talking about death. They use euphemisms like “passed,” “passed on,” or “passed away,” rather than the more precise word “died.” While the use of the euphemism is understandable as a way to distance from the pain of death, confronting the reality of what has happened by using the word “died” can also be helpful.
# 6: Showing up for the funeral of someone you care about is important. Many people regret missing funerals that they could have attended.
# 7: Grief manifests in many different ways, even for people in the same family grieving the death of the same person. These different manifestations happen because of varying life experiences, relationship with the deceased, emotional and psychological state, etc. One of the best ways to show love to others in a time of grief is to make room for expressions of grief that differ from your own.
# 8: The best way to comfort a grieving person is through the language of embrace. If you need to say something, say “I love you,” rather than a platitude like “They’re in a better place” or “It was part of God’s plan.”
# 9: Do not ask a grieving person if there’s anything you can do for them. While well-intentioned, this adds to the load of decisions that is probably already overwhelming them. If you need to do something, just do it. Bring over the casserole. The worst that can happen is that they don’t eat it. And they will know you were thinking about them.
# 10: Grief does not end. It simply transforms into new expressions. In many cases, there comes a day when you don’t think about the deceased at all, and that causes a whole new form of grief to crash over you. The good news is that grief is love transformed by loss, so even though grief is painful, it is still a form of love.
These are ten things I have learned about death and grief in my time as a priest walking the sorrowful road with people. Grief is hard. Death is a reality that none of us can escape. At the same time, during this season of Easter, we look death in the eye and tell death it has no power over us because, no matter if we live or die, we belong to God. The eternal love of God embraces us now and into eternity. And so we pray with the psalmist today:
You will not abandon me to the grave,
nor let your holy one see the Pit.
You will show me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy,
and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash.
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