Easter Vigil – Dis-ease
This sermon was originally delivered on Saturday, April 19, 2025 for Easter Vigil. We recorded Rev. Brandon Nonnemaker, Ed.D., on 4/29/2025 to add it to this podcast series.
At the Great Vigil of Easter, we stand not in full light, but on the threshold—between darkness and dawn, between death and new life. The first Easter did not come wrapped in triumph but in trembling, as faithful women carried spices and sorrow to a tomb already empty. This sermon names the sacred truth that resurrection meets us not in perfection, but in our dis-ease—and promises that even here, even now, love has the final word.
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
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Transcript
Tonight we stand in the most beautiful space of the Christian year— this liminal, holy pause—between darkness and dawn.
We have kindled new fire, told ancient stories,
sung psalms and songs of deliverance,
and stepped into the stillness of a tomb.
It is Easter—but it is not yet morning.
It is resurrection—but with astonishing silence.
The women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others— arrive in dis-ease.
Let’s not rush past that.
They carry spices, yes—
but they also carry fear, grief, trauma.
Their Lord, their teacher, their friend has died.
Their hope has been buried. They are faithful, but they are shaken. And even resurrection, at its first arrival,
does not feel like relief.
It feels like more dis-ease…that unsettled state of the soul:
anxiety before clarity, the pain before healing, waiting before joy. It is the place where everything that was no longer is…
where what is to come
has not yet arrived.
Dis-ease is the long night of the soul.
It’s where Israel stood on the edge of the sea,
pursued by Pharaoh’s army, unsure if deliverance would come. It’s where the dry bones rattled in Ezekiel’s valley,
echoing with emptiness before they resonated with life and breath. It’s where the disciples hid behind locked doors,
where Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
Dis-ease is where resurrection begins.
On Easter, well, in life really, we want clarity and joy.
Trumpets and lilies. A triumphant “Alleluia!”
We expect things to happen in a certain way.
We expect grief to end immediately. We expect healing to be linear. We say the expected “I’m fine,” even when our hearts are breaking. But the first resurrection story was not wrapped in neatness.
In his Gospel, Luke writes of women who were perplexed,
apostles who were in disbelief.
What honesty. What grace.
Because if we’re honest, some of us are still in that place.
Some of us are still standing in the shadows, spices in hand, hearts broken open. Some of us are still living with the ache of Good Friday,
the long silence of Holy Saturday.
Some of us are still reeling from loss, grief or sickness, injustice or isolation. Some of us are still in dis-ease—body, mind, or soul.
And tonight, the good news is: Christ meets us there.
Christ does not wait for us to “pull it together,” declaring everything is “fine.” Christ does not need us to pretend.
It’s okay to be authentic, to be real…
The stone has already been rolled away. The tomb is already empty. New life has already begun.
Even in our fear. Even as we tremble.
Even when we cannot yet say “Alleluia” with conviction.
That is the miracle—
Easter is not the end of dis-ease.
Easter is God’s promise through it.
Resurrection is not an escape from reality for the flawless Easter photo; it’s God’s bold claim that love is stronger than death,
even in the midst of brokenness.
It is an assurance that no stone is too heavy and no night is too long.
So where ever you hold dis-ease tonight, do not be afraid.
Do not run from it. Bring it with you.
Bring your fears, your doubts, your tears, your longing.
Because the risen Christ does not wait for perfection—
he walks out of the tomb with wounds still visible.
Easter does not erase our pain but redeems it.
Pain is real. But resurrection breaks death’s grip.
It interrupts despair.
It declares—right in the midst of death and brokenness—
that life, that love will have the last word.
So take heart,
those who grieve,
those who wait,
those who doubt the stone will ever be rolled away.
Alleluia begins as a whisper.
The tomb is empty.
The light is kindled.
Dawn is coming.
Amen.