Henry Wadsworth Longfellow observed, “T’was Easter Sunday, the full-blossomed trees filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.”

Easter is more than an event on the calendar—it’s a dawning. A slow, radiant breaking-in of a truth too large, too beautiful, too life-altering to rush in all at once. For Mary Magdalene and the other disciples, Easter didn’t explode into their hearts like fireworks—it crept in like morning light, gradually dispelling the shadows.

Kathryn Turner suggests, “Easter does not arrive as a blinding flash… rather it feels like a series of glimpses until one day we know it to be true… and are willing to stake our life—on the earth and the one hereafter—on it.”

Sometimes in life, we understand a message or get the point the first time it comes our way. But there are other times, it takes a while for truth and reality to soak in.

Regarding the story of the resurrection, some embrace the good news on the first encounter, while others hear the message for years until one day, like a grand epiphany, it dawns on them.

Let’s walk with Mary and the disciples through John 20:1–18 to see what we can learn from their response to the empty tomb:

Avoid jumping to conclusions. “So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple… ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!’” (v. 2)

Mary sees the stone rolled away and immediately assumes the worst. She jumps to a conclusion without all the facts—a very human thing to do. How often do we do the same in our faith journey? We face unanswered prayers, pain, or confusion, and assume God is absent, or that hope is lost.

But Easter reminds us—just because we don’t see Jesus doesn’t mean He isn’t present. The tomb was empty, not because something had gone wrong, but because everything had gone gloriously right.

Let Easter dawn slowly. Don’t be so quick to declare the end of the story before God has finished writing it.

Ask good questions. Peter and John race to the tomb. They see the linen and head back home. But Mary stays—and she asks.

She weeps and asks the angels, “They have taken my Lord… and I don’t know where they have put him.” Then Jesus appears—though she thinks he’s the gardener—and again she asks, “Sir, if you have carried him away…”

She’s seeking, questioning, longing. And then—He says her name. “Mary.”

And in that moment, her questions find their answer—not in information, but in relationship.

Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way: “Easter began the moment the gardener said, ‘Mary!’ and she knew who he was. That is where the miracle happened and goes on happening — not in the tomb but in the encounter with the living Lord.”

Ask good questions. Bring your doubts. Voice your grief. Easter has room for all of that.

Act on what you learn.  After Mary recognizes Jesus, he tells her, “Go to my brothers and tell them…” And she goes—becomes the first preacher of the resurrection: “I have seen the Lord!”

Letting Easter dawn on us isn’t just about having a warm feeling inside. It’s about living out the truth of the resurrection.

Easter doesn’t end with an empty tomb—it begins with changed lives.

Phillips Brooks described the message of Easter like this:

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right.
Faith and Hope triumphant say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day. 

And because He lives, we live differently.

Maybe the greatest evidence of the resurrection isn’t just what happened on that Sunday morning long ago—but how Easter keeps happening in us. Over and over again.

In every moment of forgiveness. In every act of courage. In every step of faith. In every whispered prayer that clings to hope when everything else seems lost.

Easter dawns slowly. It rises through grief, through questions, through encounters.
And when it finally breaks through, it transforms everything.

Brennan Manning, once a skeptic, now confesses, “For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ.”

So today, resist the urge to jump to despair. Ask your honest questions and listen for the voice that calls your name. And act on what you discover, living each day as someone who has encountered the risen Christ.

Because Jesus didn’t just rise once. He keeps rising—again and again—even in minds and hearts where the good news of Easter may be gradually dawning.

(Sermon from my first Easter at First Baptist Church of Pensacola, April 10, 2006.)