Neli ML

  Easter Sunday 2026 John 20:1-18 Rev. Neli Miranda               “I have seen the Lord!” Mary Magdalene proclaims on Easter morning. Her proclamation comes after a journey that begins very early, “while it was still dark.” Through these words, the evangelist John evokes not only the hour of the day but also the darkness of Mary’s desolation. Her beloved Rabbi has been brutally executed, and it seems that all hope has come to an end. She has faithfully followed Jesus to the foot of the cross and to the place where he was laid. Now, at dawn, her journey resumes: she comes to complete the burial rituals, to say a final goodbye, and to begin imagining how life might continue without him. In this way, Mary embodies a deeply human experience—the overwhelming grief that follows the loss of a loved one, when consolation is sought through gestures and rituals that help us make sense of absence.     ...