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Christ Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) · Christ Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Christ Redeemer PCA | Bluffton | 4.5.26

April 8, 2026·33 min·2 clips
Samwise Gamgee wakes from despair and asks Gandalf: 'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'—which the pastor calls the best description of Easter he knows.
The scene starts very early, when the sun had risen. Three women come to the tomb with spices and one practical worry: who will move the stone? The stone is already moved. The preacher lets that surprise land, because Mark begins with women stepping into resurrection before anyone has words for it. They enter trembling and alarmed. A young man in white tells them not to be alarmed, because Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, is risen and not there. That is the sermon's center. Resurrection does not arrive as a calm idea. It brings witness, fear, disbelief, and joy into the same room. The women matter. The preacher notes how unlikely their role would have sounded in that culture if someone were inventing a credible story. Truth tells it straight. He compares the absurdity to a ridiculous golf broadcast interruption, then turns the laugh back toward testimony. God raises up disregarded witnesses. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome are the first witnesses, not background detail. Even the disciples stumble. Luke's note that they called the report an idle tale becomes a mirror for unbelief among the people closest to Jesus. The sermon does not leave them stuck there. Easter becomes ground for laughter, joy, hope, and a prayer for the Spirit to fill them again. Sin is named plainly. The closing invitation calls anyone who has never met Jesus to come to him as King, receive forgiveness, and feel their need firsthand.

As heard by us

An Easter sermon that treats the empty tomb as a plain, steady source of hope.

The sermon stays close to Mark 16 and lets the empty tomb do most of the work. It spends time with the women at the tomb, the shock of hearing that Jesus is gone, and the fear that follows when resurrection is announced as fact.

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Why you'd press play

Need an Easter sermon that treats resurrection like news, not ornament?

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