In a characteristically unconventional Easter sermon, Pastor David Engelhardt draws parallels between Easter traditions like hiding baskets and the deeper biblical motif of hiddenness. From Mary searching for Jesus at the tomb, to stories like Joseph's hidden cup and the mysterious handwriting on Belshazzar’s wall, the message explores God’s tendency to conceal truth so that it might be found by seekers. Central to this sermon is the idea that the resurrection is the great unveiling of God's redemptive plan—calling us not to remain in hiding, but to respond in faith to the risen Christ, who bore our judgment and now invites us into restored relationship with God.

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From Pastor David,

A quick corrective note for anyone watching: In this message, I referenced the Paleo-Hebrew Script (PHS) interpretation — specifically the idea that the divine name YHWH means “behold the hand, behold the nail.” After a kind and thoughtful pastor from Pennsylvania reached out, I did a deeper dive.

What I found is this: while the Paleo Script story is a compelling narrative, it’s historically inaccurate. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, and there is a shocking lack of evidence to support the idea that each letter carried a fixed pictographic meaning — especially in the way it’s often presented today.

Feel free to research this yourself, but my current position is to set aside the modern use of PHS. It’s academically weak and not grounded in credible linguistic scholarship.

On the other hand, numbers do carry real significance throughout the Bible. But they should not be treated as hidden codes or secret keys. As scholars like Michael Heiser and Michael Brown would affirm, numbers should be referenced only when they are clearly grounded in the literary and theological context of the passage.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t deep and beautiful things to discover — just that those discoveries must always align with faithful, orthodox doctrine and the plain meaning of Scripture.