2026 Easter Message from Bishop Russell

2026 Easter Message from Bishop Russell [text]:

About ten days ago, on Tuesday, I was on my way home from Texas, where the annual gathering of the House of Bishops had met. The journey home began with a two-hour shuttle ride from the camp to the airport, a ride that usually takes only one hour. It was not a good way to start the day, and as I was about to learn, it was a sign of things to come.

Our destination was the Houston airport, where TSA wait times were running at about four hours. Yep. I was there. It was as bad as reported on the news.  Just finding the end of the line took some doing and a trip into the dark subway tunnel at the airport that eventually ended up in a completely different concourse than where I needed to be.

And so the trek to the security gate began. Weaving back and forth, up escalators, down corridors, round and round, up and down, across the baggage claim area, and through office areas usually hidden from the public. Along the way, signs told the story: 200 minutes, 150 minutes, 120 minutes. And the line kept moving at a snail’s pace, slowly, endlessly. 

When I finally reached the large main ticketing area, it felt less like an airport and more like a Disney ride on steroids. The entire space had been turned into a maze—hundreds, maybe thousands of people moving back and forth in that familiar, monotonous rhythm. It was exhausting, frustrating, and heartbreaking.

And then suddenly, three people in front of me, an airport agent in an orange vest stepped forward, pulled open the retractable nylon belt, and said, “Go this way.” It felt like a cruel joke. Another reroute. Another maze. More and more delay. 

But then everything changed. To my great surprise, that “new way” led directly to the front of a newly opened security line. And just like that, I walked straight through.

Now, I’m not saying God suddenly intervened, but it was a nice surprise. And there is a point to be made.  We believe in a God of surprise. And Easter is the greatest surprise of all. Easter is the day that God intervened, opening a new way for us.  

Remember how it began. The women’s trek to the tomb that morning expecting nothing more than the mundane, exhausting, heartbreaking task of tending to Jesus’ body. Their hearts were heavy with grief and loss. They were simply going through the motions of love in the face of death.

And then everything changed. The stone was rolled away. The tomb was empty. It felt like a cruel joke. But then they heard a message they never could have imagined. “He is risen.” God had opened a new way where there was no way, through death, through darkness, through everything that seemed finished and lost.

So much of life can feel like a long line—predictable, frustrating, exhausting, heartbreaking. We move through our days doing what must be done, often expecting nothing more than what we already know. We turn on the news, and it is more of the same. 

But Easter tells us this: God is still at work—quietly, mysteriously, and often in ways that surprise us—opening new ways we cannot yet perceive.

We cannot make divine surprises happen. We cannot force resurrection. But we can be open to it. Open to the possibility that even now, God is making a way forward—creating a path through what feels like a dead end, bringing new life out of what seems lost.

So what do we do? Perhaps it is as simple as this: be open to surprise. Its not as simple as it might seem, because being open to surprise means letting go of our certainty that the story is over. It means trusting that what we see right now is not the final scene. It means releasing our grip on how we think things must go, so that we might encounter God’s new creation breaking in.

Divine surprise often begins very small, so small we might miss it. A word. A quiet nudge. A familiar voice that gently asks, “Have you tried going this way?”

And as we allow ourselves to follow, even slightly, we begin to notice something. We find kindness where we did not expect it. We discover that love can return, even after loss. We hear laughter rising up in us after so many tears. We feel something again after numbness. We realize that fear no longer has the final word. And slowly, quietly, we come to see that the past is truly past—and that somehow, we can turn to a new future.

Easter invites us to stand right in the middle of life’s exhaustion, frustration, heartbreak, and emptiness and still dare to be open. To listen for a song even at the grave. To watch for a sign even in the dark. To hear a voice even in the silence, calling us to not be afraid and to go a new way. After all, Easter is God’s greatest surprise. And it may be closer than we think.  

Alleluia. Christ is risen.