Who Are You Looking For?

Matthew 28:1–10 NRSV

1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Like weather in the Pacific Northwest or trends from a decade ago, if you don’t like what’s cool right now or how much precipitation we’re getting, then wait a minute…it’ll change.

You want to know how all the cool kids are listening to their new music these days? It’s not digital, it’s not streaming, and it’s certainly not 8-tracks. It’s vinyl. Black, pressed, smelling amazing, crackling…wait, are we in the 70s again? My father-in-law assures me that everything cool originated in the 70s.

Now, I’m not claiming to be cool myself, but I have certainly found a love of listening to vinyl records. New ones, of course, from my favorite artists. But also, the old stuff, the things you might have listened to in high school. The ones that spark memories, the good old songs from back in the day. And if you know what you’re looking for, you can find some real gems out there, for not that much money. It’s awesome.

Maybe a simple image of resurrection can be found in simply the returned appreciation for a musical form that sparks new enjoyment and life into what was once old, packed away in a box, lost to the world.

Maybe resurrection looks like learning how to spin and make music again, with new tools, with new appreciation, with new hope.

Let us pray.

Resurrection struggles

I wrestle with the concept of resurrection. I’m sure many of us do. How do we talk about something that we don’t see in the world, something outside of our rational modes of understanding?

I read this text and I wonder what it would be like to encounter Jesus in a resurrected, new body. Truly, a body, but altogether changed. Remember, just days before, he was beaten, whipped, mocked, tortured, and crucified. The body, our bodies, tell stories. His body tells the story, with scars, of the brutal episode he has just passed through. And here he stands, in resurrected, restored glory. But not without the scars.

Where does resurrection fit in with all of this? How do we wrestle with this promise of hope beyond the grave, of death being defeated by the Creator of the world? Death and destruction still reign all around us. It takes no time at all for us to recall the ones we’ve lost, to disease, to despair, to war, to cancer, to the slow decline of age. Death is so much a part of life…so where does this story of our Risen Lord, God in the flesh, restored and present with us, where does this connect? Does it?

Through the Gospel accounts, Jesus tells his followers many times he would have to die, that his ministry and teaching was leading him to great sacrifice. And his hearers wondered at this. Adding to their bewilderment, he also told them of how the Son of Man, the Christ, would be raised again. That the temple would be destroyed, but rebuilt. That he was going on ahead of them, presumably in some state of living, to prepare a place for them. Meet me in Galilee, he said. There will be something beyond all of this. But to hear this, in the moment, I know I would have a lot of trouble figuring out what to do with that information. He can’t be serious, right? He’s speaking in parables, isn’t he? People don’t just…come back from the dead.

I really connect with those listeners. I wouldn’t know what to do with Jesus’ words, as much as you wouldn’t either. Maybe I would politely nod my head, pretending to get it, but secretly doubting. And maybe that’s ok. Maybe that’s a normal response to a miraculous claim.

The Super-Natural

There’s a question deep in the heart of this, a question of whether we can believe in realities that lay beyond our reality. What I mean is, are we able to hold the possibility that the supernatural does, in fact, occur? This is one of the most remarkable invitations this text offers us: Come, see a way beyond our way of living. Come, see that the miraculous does somehow occur. Holding the possibility that supernatural events, beyond our understanding, do, actually, occur, requires the embracing of faith in what we cannot see.

But what if we stepped back from our rational understanding of things, the scientific precision of what is and what cannot be, just for a moment. What if we wrestled with the truth that we do not know all that is possible? What if we relaxed our stringent requirements for evidence and data, even just for a moment, and embraced the wonder and hop that something else might be going on. That, perhaps, the Spirit of God is moving in ways we do not understand, but may some how be able to actually witness, right here and now?

I’m not asking you to abandon reason. Religion has too many times said to the masses, “just trust us, just believe, don’t overthink it.” That’s not what’s going on here. Rather, what if this is an invitation to dive deeper into what is reasonable and true and possible in our world and see that there are always things we do not know. And things we do not know we do not know. See where this is going?

We see the women at the tomb, wrestling with the same confusing, glorious possibility of God’s way that is both lived out in reality AND something that pushes into a new realm of possibility. The scandal of the cross and the resurrection is this: What if it’s actually true? What if we are waking up to see something more here?

Resurrection is us…changed.

We are looking for the resurrected Jesus. Let’s be honest, we want resurrection to be true. We want things to be restored, we want to see our loved ones again, we want our ailing and aging bodies to be renewed. We want the world to find order and flourishing, we want restoration of creation. We want clean streams and thriving wildlife and fresh air. We want restored relationships, with those we’ve become ostracized from or between nations with generations of conflict — we want resurrection to be real.

And we don’t want things to just come back from the dead or go back to the way things were…we want restoration in its fullest, teeming with new life, new creation, new and expanded realities. Resurrection isn’t about going back to the “good ol’ days,” days we all know where not always good for everyone, or maybe for anyone. We want what lies beyond, not simply restored, but new, strengthened, experienced afresh, seen with new eyes.

Who are you looking for?

Our question today is “who are you looking for?” We hear this from the angel, the messenger of God who meets the women at the tomb. We are as astounded as the guards, who keel over in awe and wonder. When we go with the women to the tomb, we are looking for a dead body, going to visit and mourn a lost friend. We go with them expecting reality as we understand it, on our terms.

And there we meet this tension between what we witness as expected reality and what we hope might somehow be. I think it’s fair to say we don’t even know what we want most of the time, we don’t know what reality we’re hoping for, but at least we can say, please, let something greater be true. Let there be more to this.

Who are we in a resurrection world?

We have a couple of options today, a couple of ways to emerge from our witness to the resurrection story of Jesus.

One option is to see this for all the beauty and curiosity of a wisdom teaching from an ancient time. Wow, this is an incredible story! Is it true to fact, as it is written? Maybe, I don’t know. Like any good story, the lines of fact and fiction get blurry, so we simply say, “maybe.” And in that maybe we appreciate all the good this story tells us of: a possibility of life over death, a hope for a people who thought they had lost everything. It might even be a story we order our lives around, seeing the profound goodness of Jesus’ life and trying to model ourselves after his teaching, words about loving one another, sharing what we have with the poor, forgiving others when we are wronged, standing up to the powerful, seeking justice. This is what the story inspires us to do.

But I believe there is something more for us here, another option that does all of these things, but also holds to the possibility that this kind of resurrection world is…in fact…possible.

Not possible in the sense that I’m able to just give into a reality that I cannot see and so I’m just going to trust that it’s there. That’s lazy and only gets us so far.

I am convinced this second option actually requires a lot more of us…and it’s also a lot simpler than we make it out to be.

I want us to zoom out for a bit here, pull way back from the tomb, the garden, the women, angels, guards, and Jesus. Pull out past first century Palestine. Come forward 2000 years, or go backwards millions of years. Let’s take this way out, to a vantage point where you and I are connected to this story, along with billions of others who have come before us, live here now with us, and will come after us. Perhaps we even take this to a cosmic level, a great distance where we wonder at how all things are ordered and knit together, the very foundations of the universe.

From here, let’s consider this question, again: Who are you looking for? Well, from that point of view, it’s hard to consider just one “who.” I mean, from the scope of all history and existence, how can we simply look for a pinpoint story, just a small little something like you or me?

In this option, we have to still wrestle with what resurrection means, but now have the advantage of seeing how resurrection is much greater than simply one life. That God, the one who orders all things, is above and below and around all things, that God is doing the work of resurrection in all things and times and places.

The Scriptures tell us that all creation is groaning for the restoring power of God to break through. All creation groans. Not just you or me, not just our groans and struggles and doubts and skepticism. All creation groans with us.

Pause: That feels good to know, right? We’re not alone in our wrestling, our doubts — all creation is working this out, like a woman in labor, groaning, hoping for new life to be possible, renewed, resurrected life.

As I say, I’ve been really wrestling with the concept of resurrection, especially in this season of Lent, leading up to today, Easter Sunday. I really want it to be true, but I also know that it is so hard to see, hard to pin down in this time and space. And I despair when I can’t — I want to just see resurrection take place, in the lives of people we lost too soon, in the countries ravaged by war and destruction, in the systems of our world that are so steeped with sorrow and harm. I want it to be true, to meet all of this despair and bring it home, restored.

But as I’ve wondered, as I’ve stepped back to this zoomed out perspective, something in God’s still small voice has stirred a simple hope in me.

What if we stop seeing ourselves as individuals who seek resurrection, people who want it in these particular stories of heartache and loss. What if we grieved like Mary and the other disciples, grieving how Jesus didn’t overthrow of the powers like we’d hoped he would. What if we let go of our hopes in resurrection? Seriously.

And then, what if we reconfigured what we were looking for? Perhaps instead of looking for just a man who would lead a revolution, perhaps instead of looking for God to show up to heal one illness (or millions), perhaps we could begin to see a much broader, more active and exciting possibility of this reality beyond our reality.

From the distant vantage point, we can begin to see resurrection is actually a much larger movement of all things towards wholeness and God’s shalom. God’s Righteous Peace. What if you and I are so beloved by God that this grand movement also occurs in our particular lives? All creation is groaning, because all creation is oriented towards newness and justice. Resurrection is occuring, as the entire cosmos tips a the fulcrum of Jesus’ defeat of death, and now we see, that all reality pointing towards new creation.

We are participants in an ecosystem, bodies and lives in deep connection with one another. What if we were to see this story in the garden as a witness to this deep connection and how it is now pointing us, together to the wholeness we all long for? What if a reordered, new creation is possible? And what if Jesus’ resurrection points us to how we are meant to do the real work of resurrection here and now?

Jesus sends his friends off to share the good news. He will meet them in Galilee. There are interesting particulars to that story, the great commission and ascension narratives. But what if the instruction to go to Galilee is a lot simpler in meaning: Go, now, beyond this place and reality. Go, now, to see resurrection living out. Go, out into the world, to speak of this new creation, this restored order of the world that Jesus, the Christ, is the first representative. Go, to Galilee, and to the ends of the earth, to tell of the possibility of resurrection, the hope of all things made new. And go, to do the work, yourselves, with others, co-laboring in hope of a world made new, in Christ?

Who are you looking for? It might surprise you, it might not be what you think. Who are you looking for? We’re looking for the one who was dead and is now alive, the one who points the way to wholeness and restoration for all the cosmos…and even for you and me.