There is an ancient and joyous Paschal greeting that has echoed across generations of Christians, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and proclaiming hope, new life, and the victory of life over death.

He is risen!
He is risen indeed!

It is such a simple exchange, and yet it carries the weight of everything Easter means.

This is also the tradition I share with my three brothers. Every Easter Sunday morning, whichever one of us wakes first sends the message to the others: He is risen! The rest respond: He is risen indeed! I always smile at the thought of it, because over the years it has almost become a little sibling competition — who will be the first to proclaim it this Easter morning?

This year my oldest brother won very convincingly by sending his message at 3.23am. I was certainly not up at that hour, so the honour of being first was well and truly his. By 6.15am, all four of us siblings had greeted one another with those beautiful, ancient words: He is risen indeed!

And somehow, every single year, those words still bring tears to my eyes.

This morning, the sun rose beautifully over Australia, and as I looked at the light of this Easter Sunday, I found myself thinking again of that first resurrection morning. Of grief and wonder. Of sorrow and hope meeting in the same sacred space. Of the women who came to the tomb carrying love, devotion, and heartbreak in their weary hearts.

Perhaps that is one reason this part of the Easter story touches me so deeply. It was women who stayed near. Women who came to the tomb. Women who first encountered the shock of the stone rolled away, the trembling earth of that violent earthquake, and the first signs that heaven had broken into human grief. And it was women who first carried the news that Jesus had risen.

Somehow that moves me very deeply.

I do not have any sisters, but I have been blessed with three brothers. So this morning, even as my oldest brother was the first among us to send the Easter greeting, I could not help smiling at the thought that in the biblical story, it was a woman who first got to carry the news to the men that Jesus was alive.

There is something lovely in that.

But perhaps the most tender part of all is the question at the empty tomb:
“Woman, why are you weeping? Who is it you are looking for?”

Those words always reach into my heart.

This Easter morning, as I read the Easter story again, tears filled my eyes, and my heart was gently drawn to that question. Not because tears are wrong. Not because sorrow has no place. But because Easter speaks hope straight into the places where grief still lingers. The question is so tender, so full of kindness. It is as though heaven itself bends low over human heartbreak and speaks softly into it.

Why are you weeping?

Because the tomb is empty.
Because death has been defeated.
Because the story did not end in darkness.
Because Jesus is risen.

The women came looking for the body of the One they loved, but instead they were met by resurrection. They came carrying spices and sorrow, but heaven met them there. I find such comfort in that. They came as they were — grieving, devoted, loving, weary — and they were met not with silence, but with life.

How often do we come to God carrying our own mixture of love and sorrow, faith and weariness, questions and hope? And yet Easter reminds us that the risen Christ still meets us there.

This morning, as the Australian sun rose and my phone lit up with messages from my brothers, I felt again the beauty of belonging — to family, to memory, to faith, and to this ancient story that still has the power to move something deep within me.

He is risen!
He is risen indeed!

Those words are more than a greeting. They are a declaration. A comfort. A victory cry. A reminder that light has overcome darkness, that life has overcome death, and that hope is alive.

And so this Easter Sunday morning, with tears in my eyes and gratitude in my heart, I join my brothers, the women at the tomb, and believers across the world in proclaiming the good news that still changes everything:

He is risen indeed.