The Whole Story: John 20:1-10

Easter isn’t a side note. It’s the center of everything.
And today, as we held a red thread stretched from hand to hand across the sanctuary, we remembered: Easter is not a moment that came out of nowhere. It’s the fulfillment of a story God has been telling from the very beginning.

In the beginning, God spoke light into darkness, shaped humanity from dust, and breathed His own life into us. But when sin tore through the world, God’s story didn’t stop. The crimson thread of redemption stretched forward — through promises made to Abraham, through the rescue of Israel, through kings and prophets and covenants, all pointing toward the day when the brokenness would be undone.

That thread was there when blood marked the doorposts in Egypt. It was there when David heard God's covenant whispered through a prophet. It was there in the silence between testaments — still holding, still moving.

And then, when the fullness of time had come, the thread took on flesh and walked among us.

Jesus Christ — fully God and fully man — came not just to teach or to heal, but to fulfill the rescue woven into every page of Scripture. He carried our sin, bore our shame, and willingly walked the road to the cross. And when He cried out and breathed His last, it seemed the story had broken.

But on the third day, the stone rolled away.

The tomb was empty — not because the story ended, but because death itself was defeated.
The crimson thread, stretched taut through every chapter of history, had held.
It had conquered the grave.

Today, that same thread — the story of God's relentless love — runs through your life too.

You are holding it. You are part of it.
You are not an afterthought in God’s plan. You are the continuation of the mission that began in a garden, ran through a cross, and broke open an empty tomb.

This thread calls you not just to remember, but to carry it forward.
Because the story is not finished until every heart hears the Good News — until resurrection life reaches every corner of the world.

We cut a piece of that thread this morning not to keep it as a memento, but to carry it as a mission.
It’s a reminder that we have been entrusted with the greatest story ever told — and it is ours to live, to share, to declare.

The tomb is empty.
The story is alive.
The King is risen.
And now — the thread runs through us.