April 5, 2026
Indianola Presbyterian Church
"The Voice in the Fog"
Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch
April 5, 2026 Based on Luke John 20:1-18CEB
In the spring of 1859, on the coast of Canada in New Brunswick… a civil engineer named Robert Foulis created something that would end up saving thousands of lives.
He had heard about a collision between two ships in thick fog off the coast of Newfoundland. Two vessels, both moving through the same darkness, neither able to see the other, until suddenly, catastrophically, they crashed into each other. People died in that fog.
And Foulis, rather than mourning the loss, asked a question. He knew you couldn’t keep boats from going out into the fog, but he wondered if there was a way to put a guiding voice inside it?
The result was the world's first automated steam-powered foghorn, that would wind up being installed on the harbor near that accident that same year.
A man named Joe Flemming, a longtime boater from Nova Scotia knows what it is to need that sound.
He has been lost in the fog himself, disoriented on the open water, unable to use any of his normal tools to figure out where he was. He described it once in an interview as being like a blizzard where everything is white in every direction, except the white is gray and it moves. When the fog is that thick, he said, all of your go to guides for sailing are useless… there is no wind to read, no horizon to find, no landmark to navigate by.
And then the foghorn sounds. And that sound, in his words, is sometimes "the only thing guiding a disoriented boater to shore."
A voice in the darkness, calling out in the fog whether anyone is listening or not, saying: I am here.
Come This direction. You are not alone.
I want you to hold that image before we open the scripture, because I think it is the truest picture I know of what resurrection hope actually feels like.
It’s not pristine clarity.
It’s not an experience of the fog lifting for good and once and for all.
It’s Not having all the questions answered.
Easter morning is like having a voice that reaches you where you are, in the middle of the fog, and calls you by name.
At least that’s how it was for Mary.
It is early on the first day of the week. Still dark.
In John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb alone, and she finds the stone door rolled away.
Her first instinct is not easter hope. It is easter distress
It is an experience of compounded loss.
After days of sadness and mourning she came to anoint Jesus’ body and now it seems someone has taken even this away from her. Even the body.
Even the final act of care she came to perform.
So she goes to get others to share the worse news. She runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple: they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.
Peter and the beloved disciple run to the tomb, go in, see the burial cloths lying there. And John tells us the beloved disciple sees all this and believes. And then, almost in the same breath, they return to their homes.
They go home.
If we are honest, most of us would have gone home too.
Because here is the truth about fog: we hate it.
We spend enormous energy trying to avoid it.
The fogs of uncertainty, the fogs of grief,
The fogs of unresolved seasons where we do not know how the story ends,
The fogs where something has been taken from us and we did not get a say.
We rush past it when we can. We move as quickly as possible from confusion to conclusion. If we could we’d jump straight to Easter Sunday, and skip over the hardship of Good Friday let alone the confusing unsure grief of the Saturday in between.
Given the choice, every one of us would skip the fog and go straight to clarity.
But Mary does not go home.
She remains… She stands outside the tomb weeping.
While everyone else goes home to process these events, to get some distance, she stays in the fog, in the disorientation.
She looks into the tomb and sees two angels in white. They ask her: Woman, why are you weeping?
And her answer is the same one she gave Peter. They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.
She is so thick inside the fog that she cannot see what is right in front of her. The resurrection has already happened. The evidence is everywhere. And she is unable to see any of it.
She turns, and there is Jesus standing in the garden right next to her and she does not know it is him.
She thinks he is the gardener.
Mary is not a person who lacks faith, she was one of the people closest to Jesus.
She is not a person who lacks courage. She came to the tomb in the dark, alone, before anyone else. She stayed when everyone else went home. And she cannot see the risen Christ standing three feet in front of her, because the fog of loss and disorientation is that overwhelming.
The fogs of life are like that.
They take away your normal tools of operation. Your landmarks. Your sense of direction. Sometimes even, Your ability to recognize what is right in front of you.
Jesus comes to her in the fog.
He says her name.
Mary.
One word. Without explanation.
Just her name, in a familiar voice.
spoken to her from somewhere inside the fog.
And everything changes.
She turns. Rabbouni. Teacher.
She was not looking for resurrection. She was looking for a body. She was trying to do the one last thing she could do for someone she loved. And instead, in the middle of her fog, the risen Christ appears and speaks her name.
This is where resurrection happens.
Not after the fog lifts. Inside it.
I am sure some of you came here this morning living in the midst of a fog. To be a human in 2026 almost guarantees it. Corruption, Abuse of Power, Misogyny, Meaningless War. On top of the personal fogs we journey through as well.
Some of you know exactly what fog I am talking about. You came in with it this morning. You have been living in it, maybe for a long time, and you did not need me to name it in order to understand exactly what Mary is experiencing.
You know what it is to be disoriented. To reach for your normal tools and find they do not work. To want clarity so badly you can feel it, and to have it just not come. Whatever the specific shape of that fog in your life, you know the feeling I mean.
This in-between unresolved fog is not a malfunction.
It is a pattern that runs all the way through life from this story until today.
Something ends.
And we grieve…
And while something new will eventually emerge
There is a middle section.. a period where nothing is clear.
Holy Week does not skip the middle beat. It moves through it. And the middle beat, the one where nothing is clear and the tomb is sealed and the disciples are hiding and Mary is weeping in the garden, that beat is not a failure of faith.
It is the exact conditions in which resurrection appears.
The story of Jesus’ resurrection does not end with everything sorted. It ends with people still inside the unresolved fog, still afraid, still waiting,
Even after they learn Jesus is risen… things are not resolved. The disciples are still hiding behind locked doors. The authorities are still a threat. The resurrection has happened and the fog has not lifted fully.
A yet still Jesus keeps appearing… in the middle of the fog, saying to them: peace be with you.
The message is not: the fog is over and cleared.
it’s a name spoke to guide you home. Its Peace be with you.
Robert Foulis built his foghorn because he understood something important: you cannot clear the fog.
The coast of Nova Scotia is always foggy because it’s where cold water meets warm water there, and that is just what happens when those two forces collide.
You cannot change it.
But You can only put a voice in it to guide and support people in the thick of the fog.
What the Christian faith insists on, what Easter insists on, is that God did not look at the fog of human suffering and try to clear it from a safe distance.
God walked into it. The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood Eugene Peters starts the gospel of John with, God moves into the thickest fog of our human life,
all the way to the pain of public execution and into a tomb, all the way into the depths of death itself.
Our God went there.
And because our God went there, there is a voice in the fog.
Not an explanation. Not a promise that the fog lifts by Tuesday. A voice. A presence. Someone who knows your name and is willing to say it into the darkness, whether you can see them or not.
That is the invitation of Easter. Not to have all the answers. Not to pretend the fog of life is not real. Not to rush home and make sense of everything from a safe distance.
The invitation is to stay. To stay in the fog, in the unresolved season, in the place where something was taken and the tomb is still there even if it is empty. To stay, and to listen, and to trust that somewhere in the gray, a voice is speaking your name.
You do not need to have it figured out. You do not need the fog to lift first. Mary doesn't. She simply hears her name and turns toward the sound. And then she goes and tells the disciples: I have seen the Lord.
The first preacher of Christ resurrection, Mary, gets there not by achieving clarity but by hearing her name in the fog and moving toward it.
That is enough to go on. It has always been enough to go on.
You do not have to be able to see through the fog of your life. But when you find yourself in fog, may you see how God is meeting you there and calling to you by name.
The foghorn does not clear the fog.. but It keeps calling out into it. And sometimes that is everything.
Friends, Christ is risen.
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
PRELUDE "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice and Sing" arr. Phillip M. Young The Sanctuary Bells
“Christ Lag in Todesbanden” Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow The IPC Brass arr. Michel Rondeau
INTROIT "Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia!" Tanzanian Melody Mike Ayers - percussion
WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch One: This is the day that the Lord has made All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
CALL TO WORSHIP One: We come this morning as people who know the tomb. Many: We know what it is to lose what we love. We know the weight of grief. One: We come as people who have stood outside, weeping. Many: And we come because we believe that the story does not end there. One: Christ is risen. Many: He is risen indeed. Let us worship God.
*HYMN 232 “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” EASTER HYMN
*PRAYER OF CONFESSION Ann Hitzhusen God of the empty tomb, we confess that we are afraid to face death. So we rush past grief to find the good news, unwilling to stay in the places that hurt. We have offered easy comfort where lament was needed, moved on before the mourning was done, and called it faith when it was only fear. Forgive us, God. Teach us to stay. Teach us to trust that you are present even in the depths, that you don’t just meet us on the other side of our pain but inside it, and that resur rection begins where we have the courage to weep. Amen.
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
*RESPONSE OF PARDON 240 “Alleluia! Alleluia! Give Thanks” ALLELUIA NO. 1
*PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
ANTHEM "Most Glorious Lord of Life” William H. Harris
CHIDREN’S MESSAGE Sharon Renkes
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
SCRIPTURE John 20: 1-18
The Message Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, gasping for breath. “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.” Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home. But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him. Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?” She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Sir, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.” Jesus said, “Mary.” Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!” Jesus said, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: “I saw the Master!” And she told them everything he said to her.
Sermon Rev. Trip Porch
WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD
*HYMN 250 “Hymn of Promise” PROMISE
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE followed by the Lord’s Prayer using debts and debtors.
TIME OF OFFERING online giving is available at www. indianolapres.org/give
OFFERTORY "Alleluia" Felice Anerio The IPC Brass arr. Rondeau
*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 609 “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow”
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION God, Mary ran to tell the others what she had seen. She could not keep it to herself. We offer these gifts in that same spirit, not out of obligation but out of overflow, out of the strange joy of people who have seen something real and cannot stay quiet about it. Take what we give and use it to roll away stones, to speak names into the silence, to make resurrection visible in this neighborhood and in this world. Amen.
*HYMN 248 “Christ Is Risen! Shout Hosanna” ODE TO JOY
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
CHARGE & BENEDICTION
CHORAL RESPONSE "Amen" K. Lee Scott
POSTLUDE "Christ Is Alive! Let Christians Sing" arr. Wilbur Held
Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452