Knowing Where To Look

Scriptures

Acts 10:34-43             Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

I Corinthians 15:1-11             Luke 24:1-12  

What a horrific week they’d had.  It had all started out so well – Jesus on a donkey riding into town, the disciples shouting, the crowds waving palm branches and laying their cloaks in front of Jesus – for all the world, it sounds like a rock concert, with groupies throwing their clothes at the band.   Sure, there was some grousing from the sidelines – the Pharisees, spoilsports that they were, told Jesus to make his disciples pipe down, lest they bring down the wrath of Rome with their shouts about King Jesus, the “king who comes in the name of the Lord.”  But Jesus brushed them off, so nobody else paid them any mind.

The crowds had perhaps hoped that Jesus would drive away the Romans occupying Jerusalem, but instead Jesus took on the Temple leadership, driving the moneychangers and sellers of animals out of the Temple, offering ambiguous answers to questions about whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Rome, and telling parables that implicated the Temple leadership. 

Then, after a final Passover dinner with his disciples, came the betrayal and arrest in the garden.  The warnings of the Pharisees came to pass, as the full weight of both the Temple leadership, in the persons of Annas and Caiaphas, and of Rome, in the person of Pontius Pilate and Herod, came down on Jesus full force.  Then came the awful events of Friday, when Jesus was nailed to a cross.  Even on the cross, Jesus was gracious to the end, asking God to forgive those who accused and executed him, and promising paradise to a repentant criminal.  But eventually, as the life ebbed from Jesus’ brutalized body, he said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  The body was taken down from cross and given to Joseph of Arimathea, who sympathized with Jesus.  Joseph wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it in a tomb that had never before been used.  The women were there, watching all this.  Luke ends this section of the narrative with the anticlimactic sentence: “On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.”   A strangely offhand, matter-of-fact statement, ending such a narration of horror.

On the day of crucifixion, the women had no opportunity to anoint Jesus’ body for burial – Joseph of Arimathea’s spur-of-the-moment offer of a tomb was a moment of grace, but they hardly had time to wrap the body and lay it in the tomb before the Sabbath.  So early on Sunday, the women came to the tomb, carrying spices for anointing the body. 

When they got there, the stone had been rolled away from the tomb – which on one hand was a mercy, because they’d have had difficulty moving it, but on the other hand, they had to be concerned what they would find inside.  And what they found inside was…..the linen cloth in which Jesus  had been wrapped, but no Jesus.  Other than the linen cloth, the tomb was empty.

They were wondering what on earth this might mean – the possibility of resurrection wasn’t even on their radar – but then two men in dazzling clothes, who we can understand to be angels, said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”  Then they remembered his words.   The women  – and Luke goes on to give us some of their names - Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James – went to tell the apostles, but the apostles did  not believe the women.  But then Peter ran to the tomb, looked in to see the linen cloths by themselves, and then went home – as Luke tells us, “amazed at what had happened.”

I’d like us to focus on the question asked by the two men, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  The women had seen Jesus being nailed to the cross, had witnessed the death of Jesus on the cross, had seen him taken down from the cross, had seen him laid in the tomb.  He had died.  Where else would they look for him, but among the dead?  But the women were told, “You’re looking for him in the wrong place!  He was here, but he’s not here now, because he’s alive!  Look for Jesus among the living, not among the dead!”

The words of the two men to the women are for us as well.  “Why seek the living among the dead?”  We may have learned about Jesus from the Scriptures, from the witness of those departed saints who experienced him in their lives.  We may have learned about Jesus from our grandmothers and grandfathers, our fathers and mothers, who have gone on before us.  But Jesus is alive!  We remember what the Scriptures tell us, what our grandparents and parents have told us about Jesus – just as the women, when reminded by the angels, remembered what Jesus had told them when he was with them in Galilee.  But Jesus is alive – A L I V E, capital letters, exclamation point!  Jesus is not just a memory, or a piece of history, but a living reality, with us right here, right now, in this place, among us.  And it is because Jesus is alive that our grandparents and parents, and the writers of Scripture, and all the saints through all the ages, are also alive with him, in his presence, forever.  Jesus is alive, and Jesus is the life-giving one, the giver of life.

“Why seek the living among the dead?”  Our world offers us so many false places in which to look for life.  The old Coca Cola commercial said, “Coke adds life”, but we know that Coca Cola mostly adds calories and cavities.  So many products, so many activities, so many possessions, claim that they will add life, and they cannot.  And our own feelings can be deceptive; as a recent song by the group OneRepublic says, “Everything that kills me makes me feel alive” and “Everything that drowns me makes me want to fly.” So even our own feelings can be deceptive.

“Why seek the living among the dead?”  The life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels models for us that which is lifegiving.  As Christ emptied himself for us, we are to empty ourselves on behalf of others.   As Jesus served the least, the last, and the lost, so must we.  In welcoming those whom society rejects, we welcome Christ.  As Christ was crucified, we also must be willing to suffer the crucifixion and putting to death of anything – economic security, our pride and our need for respectability, even, to the extent that they contradict the Gospel, our cherished traditions and beliefs – all self-seeking that stands between us and the ministry to which Christ calls us.  Only in letting go of our privileges and prerogatives, in being willing to part with worldly wealth and power, in serving others anonymously and sometimes thanklessly, in giving up our lives can we receive the true lives that God has in store for the faithful.

“Why seek the living among the dead?”  The Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, is for the living – the living, whoever we are and wherever we are on our journey through life – infants and young children exploring their world while growing up in the care of the church, teens discerning God’s calling for their lives, young singles and couples just starting out, families of all configurations raising children, “empty-nesters” adjusting to life after their children have set out on their own, the elderly dealing with the dual challenges of aging, aching bodies and as well as the aching need to feel that, at the end of the day, their lives have some meaning, some purpose, beyond themselves.  Good news for the living, and especially the poor, those in need, who were at the center of the Saviour’s earthly ministry and so near the Saviour’s heart.  Our mission is to offer the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ to the living, inside and outside the church, with all their blessings and all their burdens.    We are Easter people, with a message that though we pass through the midnight of grief, joy comes in the morning; that beyond despair is hope; beyond death is new life;  beyond every crucifixion is a resurrection, that while today may be Good Friday, Sunday’s a comin’. 

“Why seek the living among the dead? He is not in the tomb, but has risen!”  May our lives reflect the new life of the Risen Christ, and may our neighbors find the new life of the Risen Christ among us, the gathered congregation of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Amen.