Almost Home

Easter 2026
Two nights ago, we sat in the pews of Wayside Chapel in San Antonio as part of a community recognizing the weight of Yeshua's gruesome death 2,000 years ago. Our speaker, Cameron Contrestano, invited us into an earlier conversation he’d had with a young man who was struggling to bridge the gap between his need for a Savior and his skepticism of the Good News message. The young man’s barrier was simple: “It’s just too good to be true.” Cameron forced us to stop and evaluate: in a world defined by "bad news," does the "Good News" actually hold weight?

We are a world at odds. America is at war with its enemies and, increasingly, with itself. If you followed Mimsie’s recent blogs from Israel, you vicariously saw a country under siege, a region stretched by the tension of explosion after explosion. It is easy to look at the global stage and wonder where this is all headed. The Church exists in the middle of this chaos, often succumbing to the feelings of discouragement, discontent, and destruction that plagues the secular world.

The unbridled brokenness seemingly engulfing mankind isn't just a headline; it’s heartbreaking. A couple of weeks ago, a young pastor’s family from our own community was struck by tidal wave of grief. Their child—a light in their lives—was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. When the medical community says further traetment would be futile and the only human course left is palliative care, the specter of death feels far more real than the promise of a Resurrection. We find ourselves asking: Is the message of the Church Jesus is building too good to believe?

To understand what is happening to all of us, we must understand the source of our anxious desperation. The roots of our global and personal wars are found in the Garden of Eden. A spiritual war that began with a lie—“Did God really say…?”—shattered the perfection of the cosmos. Yet, the beauty of the Gospel is that God didn't leave us in the wreckage. The Redeemer stepped into the brokenness, taking on our flesh and our failures. He was buried in a gifted tomb, but that was merely the transition to a new chapter.

I see the parallels everywhere. I see the heartache of my friends grieving over the losing a child before it happens. I see the heartache of a Father who gave His in eternity past. I think of Mimsie, who two weeks ago left her family in Israel to fly home. That word—Home—is the heartbeat of the Gospel. Whether we celebrate Easter or Passover, we are celebrating a certain future return with the King to the place where we belong. Our lives and our lips have the power to deliver hope to the hopeless in the "allowed time" we have left.

The Gospel feels too good to be true because it is an impossible human grace. 

But...

Easter Sunday happened, and home is closer than we think.