In 2018 Episcopal priest Jake Owensby wrote a book called A Resurrection Shaped Life: Dying and Rising on Planet Earth. In the book, the author seeks to help us understand that resurrection is not simply for the world beyond this life but exactly for this life!

Today, we celebrate Jesus’ day of resurrection! But before we could celebrate, we needed to grieve. In fact, we spent this entire past week that we call Holy Week mourning the hardships Jesus went through, his own grief, the misconceptions, guilt, and pain of disciples who didn’t understand him, and Jesus’ excruciating death. By processing and immersing ourselves in this time of grief, we can stand here today in true celebration of the miracle of God’s amazing grace!

This grace, this amazing grace that God bestows upon each of us, thi…